Investment News

Scientific Beta senior investment specialist, Mike Aked, has some bad news for those expecting outperformance just for being ‘good’. Reported links between high environmental, social and governance (ESG) scores and above-market returns have dissolved on the acid test of careful statistical analysis, Aked said. “The evidence is clear – and contrary to the belief of… [Read More…]

NZ wealth management firm, Forsyth Barr, has opened up a wait-list to a new robo-advice service that has been more than three years in the making. Billed as “NZ’s first guided investment app”, the Tempo digital advice system emerged out of the Forsyth Barr ‘Trove’ project, established in 2020. According to just-released documents, Tempo will… [Read More…]

AMP NZ has seen adviser numbers jump by almost 40 per cent following its acquisition of ‘financial coaching’ outfit Enableme earlier this year, according to figures released with the parent group’s half-year report last week. The Enableme buyout added some 20 employed advisers to the AMP NZ fleet, which rose from 52 at the end… [Read More…]

KiwiSaver schemes are on track to collect a record $780 million in fees this year, according to the June quarter Morningstar report, implying a not unreasonable annual cost ratio of just under 0.8 per cent. The Morningstar estimates (based on published fund fee rates) are broadly in line with the cost ratio of 0.81 per… [Read More…]

Mint Asset Management has hired a new senior investment analyst, luring Tom Deacon from Macquarie NZ. Deacon, who served as senior analyst in the Macquarie Australasian stock research team for the last five years, will specialise in Australian and NZ healthcare and tech companies at Mint. Prior to Macquarie, he spent over two years as… [Read More…]

The $45 billion Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) fund has tipped into a novel special purpose investment vehicle backing a Wellington City Council sewerage improvement scheme. Under the private-public-partnership agreement established last week, a group of four banks, Crown Infrastructure Partners (CIP) and the ACC will contribute a collective $400 million to the ‘Sludge Finance’ fund… [Read More…]

For Stewart Investors sustainability is more than just corporate data distilled into alphanumeric ratings, sin scores or green ticks for easy consumption. Pablo Berrutti, senior investment specialist with the global equities firm, said Stewart takes a more qualitative approach to building sustainable portfolios. “Not everything that can be measured matters and not everything that matters… [Read More…]

S&P Global Ratings has unexpectedly dropped top-line environmental, social and governance (ESG) gauges from its corporate credit reports less than three years after introducing the method. In a release last week S&P said it would stop publishing the ESG indicators, expressed in alphanumeric format, “effective immediately”. According to the statement, S&P introduced the measure in… [Read More…]

China has lost some of its lustre over the last couple of years for offshore investors as slow growth, property woes and geopolitical tension have dented confidence. The recent move by the Biden administration to limit US investment technology investments in China and a deflationary shift in the giant Asian economy probably haven’t helped sentiment… [Read More…]

The Future Fund might make a bigger contribution to the budget if it was liquidated, according to the Australian Centre for Independent Studies, which argues that its returns haven’t been that impressive even as its benchmark gets harder to beat. Established in 2006, the Future Fund was set up with A$60 billion from successive budget… [Read More…]