The nearly ruined ABC Learning childcare empire was saved by a philanthropic consortium, The Good Start. But it wasn’t charity. MIRANDA WARD reports. A consortium of charities, bankers, commercial lawyers, tax experts came together with Social Ventures Australia (SVA) to raise a total $170 million to acquire the bankrupt ABC Learning childcare centres from competing private equity firms. Goodstart, the biggest social enterprise in Australia, now runs more than 600 of the failed ABC Learning childcare centres. This wasn’t charity but it wasn’t the normal run-of-the-mill investment either. It was [...]

The first super funds and wealth managers to adopt the Bluedoor administration and registry platform wanted the product to tick every box on their admin software wish list. To win them over, it had to be an integrated product, web-based, able to be customised, and easy to implement. Coming up to three years since the acquisition of Bluedoor Technologies by DST Global Solutions, the early adopters of the Bluedoor system – all self-administering funds – have worked through the initial stages of implementation and are beginning to examine the more [...]

Foreign investors are buying arable land worldwide and Australia is on their radar. Are domestic investors aiming to invest more in agriculture? MIRANDA WARD reports.   Tony Meppem, co-founder of Farmland Investment Management Australia (FIMA), which invests in properties, says opportunities in Australian farmland are “generational”. Our country “ticks all the boxes”. Australia has a legal system that supports farmland ownership: an effective system of property rights; a sophisticated financial and agricultural marketing framework; good commercial support; and a sophisticated agriculture transport system, Meppem says. This framework of support coupled [...]

For asset managers, the future of innovation lies in mastering existing strategies before moving on to new ideas, writes MIRANDA WARD.   Pension funds are not optimistic about the future of innovation in the investment industry. According to the influential CREATE-Research Report, Investment Innovations: raising the bar, most pension plans surveyed do not think financial product innovation will deliver genuine value for money to their members in the next three years. “Pension plans anticipate no ground-breaking innovations that will markedly help them,” the report, authored by Amin Rajan of CREATE-Research, [...]

A thematic approach to investing could help funds be at the head of the pack by capitalising on tomorrow’s developments rather than the trends of the day. Tim Unger, Towers Watson senior investment consultant and author of the recent report Capturing long-term themes, which explores thematic investing, said while traditional means of constructing portfolios were all well and good, it was useful to think about what themes a portfolio is exposed to now and in the future.

For custodians, remaining competitive means using technology to build scalable processes while also being responsive to clients’ specific needs. As the industry evolves, no one wants to be left playing catch up. MIRANDA WARD reports.