Alternatives

Perennial Partners’ sustainable small cap equities fund, the Perennial Better Future Trust, was up 2.4% net of fees in December, beating the S&P/ASX Small Ordinaries Accumulation Index’s return of 1.4%. The trust has been in operation for almost four years, since inception in February 2018, and has grown to exceed $100 million in assets. The…

“Learning to live with COVID will be the major theme of 2022,” according to Ken Leech, chief investment officer of leading fixed income manager Western Asset. But not necessarily in the way we think. As the Omicron variant ravages Australia and other parts of the developed world, Leech highlights continuing travel restrictions and lower vaccination…

If we are truly honest about the state of the Australian investment industry when it comes to alternatives, we were very much a backwater for many years. That is, at least, at the mass market, retail, or wholesale level. For many years, the best alternative assets advisers could access were the so-called “black boxes” of…

Morningstar has released its “top-performing global equity fund managers in 2021” report. This year, the funds that performed the best contained a well-disciplined approach to investing, together with an experienced team capable of producing high-performance numbers. The research report found that the top three global fund managers also had outstanding longer-term performance numbers. What this…

One of the most powerful, and potentially long-standing, impacts of the pandemic was the so-called democratisation of investing. With over a billion people stuck at home, many of whom were in secure work, or alternatively the beneficiaries of the largest stimulus package in history, a large portion turned to investing to fill the time. At…

The team at Evergreen Consultants has released cutting-edge research that reveals the direction markets will take with higher inflation. The 2021 issue of Evergreen Consultants’ Long-Term Expected Returns Framework has made ground-breaking projections that dispel inflationary concerns. Projections show the Australian and global equity markets outpacing most other asset classes in the decade ahead. Evergreen…

The Responsible Investment Association of Australasia delivered an early Christmas present for ESG investors and trustees alike, confirming the long-debated question as to whether ‘green’ or ‘responsible’ super funds outperform. The answer was a resounding yes for those funds that are categorised as leaders according to the RIAA’s extensive survey and due diligence process. The…

Opportunities only the private equity market can offer have been unlocked and captured by global ETF provider VanEck. The ETF provider has stepped into the private equity space with a focus on unlocking investment opportunities in start-ups, buy-outs, and project financing. Van Eck will soon list the Global Listed Private Equity ETF (ASX: GPEQ). According…

“To work, or not to work” was the title of Franklin Templeton’s Chief Investment Officer of Fixed Income, Sonal Desai’s latest white paper. The detailed analysis on the US labour market offers insights into the future that lies ahead for Australia but also into the unique and difficult conditions the world is in as we…

Popular wealth platform Praemium has approved Monochrome’s flagship Bitcoin Fund on the Powerwrap product suite providing wholesale investors access to a Bitcoin fund via their IDPS-like scheme. Powerwrap has been well ahead of the cryptocurrency boom, having launched its first Bitcoin tracker fund two years ago, through the Cloudbreak Asset Management (CBAM) team, which established…

Revolution Asset Management, one of Australia’s leading providers of financing to non-bank lenders and corporates, recently highlighted the strong health of Australia’s corporate sector in a portfolio update. The group continues to move from strength to strength just a few years since founding, with the latest Private Debt Fund having deployed $700 million of $1.1…

The London Stock Exchange Group and its FTSE Russell subsidiary have partnered with Digital Asset Research, provider of cryptocurrency pricing and market data, to announce the launch of the FTSE Russell Digital Asset Index Series. It marks another step into the mainstream for cryptocurrency, the further professionalisation of an industry sector that has remained somewhat…