Insights

Last week, National Australia Bank (NAB) announced the departure of its fourth chief executive officer this millennium, with Andrew Thorburn set to leave the bank following the damming assessment of NAB leadership in the Banking Royal Commission’s final report. As speculation builds on who is next in line for the top job, and what qualities they will need to make real changes, Industry Moves takes a look at the CEOs that have come before.

As is customary for our first newsletter of the year, we bring you a snapshot of the 1428 moves reported in 2018, with comparative data and analysis for the last three years.

If you have only ever read Industry Moves' weekly newsletter without finding out more about what makes our service unique, then you may be missing out on a valuable information resource. As well as our Moves Research service, giving you access to seven years of news on moves, there is a whole swag of other free features that you could be using. Did you know that Industry Moves can...

Through our weekly Q&As, we’ve discovered the sporting prowess, former careers, notable views and sliding-door professions of some of our industry’s newest and most recognisable faces. Take our quiz to test your knowledge of some of the people we've featured in 2018.

The year 2018 will be remembered in the finance industry for The Royal Commission into Banking and Finance, the full impact of which - both good and bad - we are yet to see. During this tumultuous year, Industry Moves has reported on 1,365 moves - 793 appointments and 572 departures.

It has been a standout year for product launches, despite market wobbles. This year Industry Moves reported on 109 product launches, compared to 95 last year. Listed products, such as exchange traded funds and listed investment companies and trusts, continued to dominate, as fund managers sought to make their capabilities accessible to more investors.

With the year drawing to a close, we asked some of our industry’s influencers to name the biggest/brightest/best ideas to come out of 2018 – be they related to financial services or have a wider societal, political or environmental focus. Their answers were as diverse as they were interesting, with some of the biggest issues the industry has faced this year being front of mind.

With US President Donald Trump accusing China of manipulating its exchange rate to gain the upper hand on trade, Aviva Investors considers the likelihood of an all-out currency war between the rival superpowers.   

Aviva Investors takes an in-depth look at the relationship between responsible investing and performance. 

It doesn’t have to be about negative stuff. For me, I had left The Hunger Project through my own choice, and I was proud of what I’d accomplished. So at first moving on was a breeze. However, after a time I noticed my thoughts circling back. It wasn’t because of regret – I was still clear about my decision. What I realised was that I had the history of what I had achieved hovering like a shadow over my future. Subconsciously I had these stories running through my brain, like ‘nothing else I did could possibly be as great as what I’d done!’ (I mean – I was a part of ending hunger!) ‘Would I ever do work that meaningful?' 'Could I find a similar tribe of amazing people?’ etc etc. In recognising this, and bringing consciousness to it, I was able to smile at myself and let it go. This then gave me the space to truly create the next arc of my life freely.

CEOs at super funds, especially the not-for-profit ones, are traditionally stayers (as Penny Pryor’s 2014 article, CEOs that stay, can attest). 2018 though, has seen a change at the top of six of Australia's largest super funds. With the departure of some of the veterans of the industry, we shine a spotlight on their successors, three of which have been women.

Paul Costello, the founding chief executive of the Future Fund, has lost his battle with cancer.

The recent Annual Meeting of the IMF reinforced that EM debt investors should pay extra attention to countries’ individual circumstances, write Aviva Investors' Aaron Grehan and Carmen Altenkirch.

The winners of the 16th Annual SuperRatings and Lonsec Fund of the Year Awards were announced on Tuesday night to a full house of super fund and industry leaders at the Grand Hyatt Ballroom in Melbourne. UniSuper, the $70 billion fund for those working in the higher education and research sector took out two awards, including the coveted Fund of the Year Award.

Duration is a key consideration for bond investors; but it’s far from the whole story, argues James McAlevey, Portfolio Manager, AIMS Fixed Income and Target Return funds. He says the bond market is a vast and varied place. It has a multi-factor opportunity set, and does not purely depend on the sensitivity of an asset’s price to movements in interest rates - i.e. duration.

How many appointments and departures were reported for the first three quarters of the year compared to the last three years? What percentage of those appointments were secured by women? We analyse the last three years' data in Industry Moves' vault of over 5,200 moves to find out, and revisit some of the biggest moves from the last nine months.

A sound portfolio construction process is critical to avoiding the pitfalls of behavioural biases, which will become all too apparent as the credit cycle turns, argues Josh Lohmeier, Aviva Investors’ Head of North American Investment Grade.

The Mother’s Day Classic, which has raised $33 million for breast cancer research over the past 20 years and has its sights set on raising $40 million by 2020, has welcomed three new directors to its board: HESTA's Stephen Reilly, NGS Super's Thomay Gatis and Cbus Super's Robert Pickering. Industry Moves finds out a little about their reasons for joining, what they hope to achieve, and discovers that one is an ex-DJ, one is a published novelist, and one is drawn to those who stand up for what they believe in.

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors are being recognised in global fixed income investing as value-added indicators of potential economic performance. Templeton Global Macro CIO, Michael Hasenstab, examines ESG factors in investing and how they speak to an economy's potential as an investment destination.

The IFA market is likely to emerge as the victor as the Royal Commission into banking and superannuation has highlighted the problems with a vertically integrated financial services model and institutional ownership of the advice chain.