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It’s commonly stated that career risk is among the biggest factors that drives the perceived under-performance of most active managers. The evidence suggests that as successful managers attract more capital and their remuneration increases, they tend to regress back to the benchmark. But why is this so? With success comes more assets under management and…

Australian Ethical, which is already the equal-largest manager of specialist ESG-related funds in Australia, alongside Vanguard, is now aiming to be among the largest of all managers with Australian businesses operating in the wholesale and retail space. And it is hoping technology will help. The manager (ASX: AEF) has partnered with a specialist start-up Alta…

BetaShares has taken on a new cornerstone investor, TA Associates, as it enters its second decade in business, with founding partner Mirae Asset Management cashing in its chips. TA is arguably the largest growth-orientated global private equity firm with a specialty in financial services. TA, which has backed managers such as PIMCO and Invesco early…

As is almost always the case, money talks. When a star portfolio manager suddenly resigns after recording spectacular gains, there is a good chance they have been poached within the funds management industry by a competitor waving more money. Sometimes entire teams leave altogether, or a high-profile portfolio manager may walk out, for one reason…

The annual Awards held by Morningstar saw the winners of 2021 announced across various categories, something we covered here. Taking the majority of the awards was the team at Hyperion, which was also rated the overall Fund Manager for the year. Taking the Global Equities Fund Manager of the Year award, however, was Scott Berg…

Mark Arnold and Jason Orthman stood at the podium to collect three awards at last Friday (Feb 26) afternoon’s annual Morningstar funds awards, including the main prize, that of Fund Manager of the Year. But they didn’t quite scoop the pool. They were on stage four times but had to make way for T. Rowe…

Last week, investment research firm Morningstar Australasia announced the finalists of the 2021 Morningstar Australia awards. Some of the big names include First Sentier Investors, Franklin Templeton and Hyperion Asset Management – all in the running to win the prized fund manager of the year award. Each of these funds has delivered exceptional returns to…

Bryan Gray, a genuine stalwart of, and major contributor to, the strong position of Australia and New Zealand’s asset servicing sector, has retired. He spent 12 years at State Street followed by nearly 20 years at J.P. Morgan. Gray is the only person to have been chair of the Australian Custodial Services Association twice, in…

Revolution Asset Management, a specialist private debt manager under the Channel Capital stable, has announced new appointments to its investment team to meet growing demand from institutional and wholesale clients.  Lucie Bielczykova and Steve Sutinen will be joining the growing firm as assistant portfolio manager and portfolio manager respectively. Established in 2017, Revolution has grown…

“Green-washing” and ESG may have been the most popular words in funds management in 2020, as consumers became more interested in where their capital was being invested and what it was being used to support. An extensive list of events ranging from Westpac’s money-laundering scandal, to Rio Tinto’s sacred-sites explosions and staff under-payments, has challenged…

Leading global equity manager GQG Partners, which is now just five years old, is now four times larger than home-grown Platinum Asset Management and closing in on Magellan. Named for the core of its investment philosophy ‘Global, Quality, Growth’ the experienced team managed to add another US$36 billion in assets under management in 2021 even…

The departure of top performing Asia Fund manager Joseph Lai before Christmas has forced contrarian value manager Platinum Asset Management into some leadership changes. The company announced to the ASX recently that Clay Smolinksi, who is currently the Portfolio Manager of the Platinum International and Unhedged Funds would be promoted to co-CIO with Andrew Clifford….