Jim Christensen, the investments boss of one of Australia’s biggest corporate superannuation funds, Telstra Super, is close to fully rebuilding his team after a chain of key departures in the past eight months, and has viewed the task as an opportunity to reshape the fund’s alternatives program and consider the potential for further internal management. Simon Mumme reports.
Asset consultants and fund managers are vying for new ground in making asset allocation tilts on behalf of pension funds, with the rise of what is now generally referred to as ‘dynamic asset allocation’ (DAA). Greg Bright spoke with Georg Schuh (pictured), a managing director and CIO of Deutsche Asset Management in Frankfurt, about the trend.
This research by T Rowe Price looks at the performance of European stocks over a seven-year period to December 2009 and finds, among other things, that companies with the highest return on equity outperform in times of risk aversion, giving investors some downside protection, but fall out of favour in momentum-driven markets.
Overheating and overindulgence in China are presenting a significant shorting opportunity according to noted hedge fund manager, Jim Chanos, president and founder of New York-based Kynikos Associates, who was speaking at a London School of Economics event.
In this opinion piece Edward Ladd, chairman emeritus of Standish Mellon, looks at real effects of the shift in debt from the private to public sectors, with particular emphasis on the implications the situation in the US may have on global markets.
The $48.4 billion OMERS, which plans to have 90 per cent of assets directly managed by 2012, increased its investment management expenses in 2009 by 8 per cent, a figure it claims is offset by lower investment operating and third-party manager expenses.