News

Joseph Lai, the top-performing Asia equities manager who resigned from Platinum Asset Management on December 29 last year, is set to join Fidante’s new boutique, Ox Capital. He will reportedly link up with another long-term emerging markets specialist, Doug Huey. The two had worked together at Platinum, where Huey was an investment analyst, prior to…

Property fund manager Charter Hall’s Direct Long WALE fund has received a “Recommended” rating from Zenith Investment Partners. Standing for “weighted average lease expiry,” the fund is managed by a five-person investment team responsible for the full suite of Charter Hall’s direct unlisted property funds. The focus is on identified well-tenanted, long-term direct property assets…

Markets are on the rebound from last week’s hefty losses which came on the back of hawkish Federal Reserve commentary. The recovery is also hoping that this week’s Fed’s speakers aren’t as hawkish as the dot plot suggests. The dot plot indicates the high probability of an interest rate rise in 2023, a year earlier…

Independent fund manager, Barwon Investment Partners, which manages more than $2 billion on behalf of its clients, will shortly launch the Barwon Disability Accommodation Fund. The property and “impact investment” fund is open-ended in structure and will target wholesale investors seeking returns from properties in the Australian specialist disability accommodation (SDA) sector, under the NDIS…

If investors ever had any concerns about whether the Perennial ‘Better Future’ strategy was giving up any potential returns through its ESG orientation, the actual results should put them to rest. The strategy, available through a standard unlisted unit trust, the listed active managed fund vehicle (ASX: IMPQ) and mandates on request, has averaged 14.7…

Even in ethical and responsible investing, ‘there will always be winners and there will always be losers, not everything is going to win’. They were some of the words of wisdom offered by Mike Murray, Head of Domestic Equities at Australian Ethical. What began as a boutique, niche ethical fund manager has grown into a…

Thematically focussed funds have been the big winners in fund flows in the past three years, but most themes have turned out to be fads, new research shows. According to Morningstar’s latest ‘Global Thematic Funds Landscape Report’, link here, over the three years through March 2021, collective assets under management in the 1,349 thematic funds…

The Melbourne-based cryptocurrency exchange Cointree is one of Australia’s first and longest running crypto exchanges having launched in 2013. We were recently able to spend some time with the CEO of Cointree, Shane Stevenson to discuss recent events in the cryptocurrency and digital asset markets along with understanding where Cointree sees the future of the…

The Australian Securities and Investment Commission, regulator of the financial adviser industry, this week released their long-awaited guidance regarding Ongoing Fee Arrangement changes set to come into force on 1 July 2021. In a positive move for advisers struggling under reams of compliance paperwork, the guidance replaced Regulatory Guide 245 and offers a straightforward commentary…

Castlerock, a full-service property group specialising in buying and managing Commonwealth and State Government tenanted buildings is set to expand its asset base following its latest purchase. The group has made the largest acquisition in their 18-year history, purchasing the Icon building located in Ipswich’s CBD for $145.2 million. The purchase will be settled in…

Specialist Australian middle market private credit manager, Epsilon Direct Lending, this week confirmed the successful launch of their first fund after securing foundation investors. As highlighted in our earlier article, published in February here, the private credit market has seen massive growth in recent years as the major banks withdraw capital from the sector. This…

Investment firm Monash has restructured its Absolute Investment Company LIC (which traded under the ASX ticker MA1) with near-unanimous shareholder approval, voicing concerns that the LIC was “besmirching” the house’s reputation as top fundies. Monash Investors will restructure its Absolute Investment Company into an exchange-traded managed fund (ETMF) – the Monash Absolute Active Trust (ASX:…