After a lifetime in super administration, David Orford has realised another long-held ambition. This week he announced the final piece in what he believes is the best retirement solution in Australia, which will be manufactured in conjunction with Generation Life. Optimum Pensions, controlled by the Orford Foundation, which is the beneficiary of most of Orford’s…
A small coterie of now well-heeled technology entrepreneurs is responsible for much of the progress seen in that segment of the Australian investment advice landscape for the past 25-or-so years, mostly starting in the days of dial-up modems. Two of them have just joined the board of the latest financial adviser systems firm, the four-year-old…
Platinum Asset Management’s lead portfolio manager on its $5.2 billion Asia-ex Japan fund, Joseph Lai, resigned suddenly over the Christmas period and has left the firm. He had signed off, however, on a stellar year for the group’s top-performing strategy. Lai took over running the Asia ex-Japan managed fund (and the $492 million listed version)…
Due to its open-source ethos, bitcoin has travelled an unconventional growth path. For starters, no-one seems to know who invented it (rumoured to be a Sydneysider, possible pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto) but what we know is when it will all end – in 104 years when the last bitcoin will be mined. Putting its start behind…
The good news for IOOF (ASX: IFL) following the battering it took from shareholders last month is that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has approved its MLC takeover. The bad news is that the remaining class action against it has been funded. The ACCC said on Monday it would not oppose IOOF’s $1.4…
Assets in alternative investments are expected to grow by 9.8 per cent a year over the next five years, to hit US$17 trillion (A$23.4 trillion) by 2025, according to the latest research by Preqin, the global alternatives research and data provider. Private equity will double to US$9.1 trillion and Asia will be a “huge driver.”…
There were no recommendations in the Retirement Income Review final report, and nor did there need to be. In the highly charged political environment around super, there was sufficient evidence for the Government to do what it wants. Michael Callaghan, the chair, and his two panelists, Carolyn Kay and Deborah Ralston, deliver more than 600…
SMSFs are not as expensive to operate as many, including ASIC and the Productivity Commission, have led us to believe, according to a report by consulting actuaries Rice Warner, and published to coincide with the start of ‘SMSF Week’. The report was commissioned by the SMSF Association (SMSFA) which has been continually irked by both…
While the big tech stocks have driven global as well as US share market growth for several years, questions are emerging about how long this will last; and where do investors go when the world is also awash with “low-to-no” interest rates? In a series of four webinars for fund managers with which it partners,…
Loftus Peak, Australian global equities boutique, has become the second manager to launch a “quoted managed fund.” This looks set to become a strong trend in retail distribution, with a host of managers lining up for the new form of listing and an extra administrator entering this part of the market, Link Fund Solutions. The…
