The addition of these funds complements BlackRock’s local suite of portfolio building blocks and assists Australian investors to embed sustainability considerations into their portfolios.

The three funds are the iShares Core MSCI Australia ESG Leaders ETF (IESG), iShares Core MSCI World Ex Australia ESG Leaders ETF (IWLD) and iShares Core MSCI World ex Australia ESG Leaders (AUD Hedged) ETF (IHWL).

Leveraging MSCI’s Leaders ESG best-in-class methodology coupled with its rigorous ethical, climate and governance-based exclusions, the iShares Core MSCI Australia ESG Leaders ETF (IESG) seeks to provide investors with targeted exposures to companies with improved sustainability credentials relative to their sector peers within the small, mid-, and large-cap segments of the Australian market. Priced competitively at 9 basis points (bps), IESG is designed for Australian investors seeking Australian equity index exposure with an ESG focus.

Similarly, the ESG enhancements made to the iShares Core MSCI World ex Australia ESG Leaders ETFs –IWLD and IHWL aim to provide investors with broadly diversified international equity exposure as well as improved sustainability credentials relative to their peers. Additionally, the change to the structures of IWLD and IHWL seeks to minimise tracking error. The management fee of both funds is unchanged at 9bps and 12bps (for the AUD hedged version) respectively, in line with BlackRock’s commitment to make investing in sustainability more accessible and affordable for all Australians.

In further endorsement of the iShares Core MSCI World ex Australia ESG Leaders ETFs –IWLD and IHWL, both funds maintained their Recommended ratings from Zenith Investment Partners.

James Kingston, Head of iShares Australasia, said: “ESG is becoming a critical consideration for our clients in constructing portfolios, including incorporating their sustainability goals as well as improving overall portfolio resilience.

“ETFs have a pivotal role to play in being the foundational building blocks for investors to integrate sustainability into their portfolios in a cost-effective manner.

“Our local iShares ESG ETF suite aims to assist more Australian investors in fulfilling both their financial and sustainability-related investment goals and is part of BlackRock’s broader commitment to make sustainability our standard of investing.”

About MSCI Custom ESG Leaders Indexes

The funds are benchmarked to the MSCI Australia IMI Custom ESG Leaders Index and the MSCI World ex Australia Custom ESG Leaders Index which are designed to represent the performance of companies with high ESG ratings relative to their sector peers, while excluding companies associated with controversial businesses or exposed to climate risk.

These two indexes respectively achieved a 9% and 11% improvement in ESG Score, driven by the best-in-class approach to ESG selection; and a 56% and 60% reduction in carbon emissions, driven by excluding companies exposed to climate risk.

Simone Bouch, Head of Australia and New Zealand Client Coverage at MSCI, said: “In the transition towards a sustainable economy, it is imperative that all investors have access to ESG and climate solutions, empowering them to make better investment decisions. MSCI is very proud to work with BlackRock to play a critical role in making sustainability more accessible to Australian investors.”

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Simone Bouch

Zenith Investment Partners has announced the roll-out of the MSCI BarraOne portfolio tool within its consulting business, further enhancing the delivery of institutional-grade portfolio analysis, service scalability, insights and reporting to its managed account portfolio clients.

Typically the domain of institutional investors, the MSCI BarraOne is a research-driven analytical platform that provides users with integrated risk and performance analytics and deeper visibility into the risk/return profile of investments.

Steven Tang, Zenith’s Head of Consulting, said the subscription will deliver greater global market insights into their client portfolios, at a faster pace, supporting the investment decision-making and implementation across multiple portfolios on behalf of their clients.

“Advisers are proactively looking for consulting relationships that can help better scale their ongoing service delivery to clients.

“The quality and breadth of analytics delivered by MSCI enables us to incorporate institutional-grade insights and ready reporting into our offering to advisers, further expanding our scaled service delivery to managed account clients,” Steven said.

Simone Bouch, MSCI’s Head of Australia and New Zealand Client Coverage, said “we’re pleased to collaborate with Zenith to bring this capability to the Australian retail investment market. The MSCI BarraOne platform is powered by state-of-the-art factor models across multi-asset classes and we’re delighted to work with Zenith as they expand the investment tools and services they offer clients.”

In further recognition of the importance of delivering analytics and insights to support the advice process, Zenith will soon launch its new Portfolio Builder tool to subscribers. The platform will enable advisers to design, maintain and compare client portfolios in a user-friendly format, providing important look-through analysis of exposures in equities, REITs and fixed income for individual funds and constructed portfolios.

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The group’s combined investment business, Aberdeen Standard Investments, will be the UK’s largest active asset manager and one of the largest investment houses globally. It will have over 1,000 investment professionals and AUD $988* billion in assets under management.

Aberdeen Standard Investments brings together the complementary strengths of two major asset managers to create a world class investment management brand with industry-leading expertise across multi-asset and absolute return investment strategies, equities, fixed income, property and alternatives. The combined business in Australia will have over 70 employees in Sydney and Melbourne, including local Australian Equities, Australian Fixed Income and Infrastructure investment teams.

Brett Jollie has been named Managing Director, and Simone Bouch Head of Distribution, for Australasia. Brett Jollie was previously Managing Director of Aberdeen Asset Management, while Simone Bouch was Head of Standard Life Investments for Australasia. Stuart James, who was Aberdeen’s Head of Distribution in Australia, retains a senior role in the business. Peter Young AM, Chairman of Standard Life Investments Australasia, will continue to advise the business, working closely with the Australian management team.

Brett Jollie said he is excited about the prospects for the newly-merged business; “The merger presents compelling opportunities for both clients and colleagues. Our clients gain access to a vast global network of investment experts and a far broader and deeper range of capabilities. Our greater scale means we are well-placed to build tailored solutions and navigate the complex investment environment in which we now operate. Our people will benefit from being part of a global business with scale and diversity.”

Simone Bouch said the merger created a powerful and truly global distribution reach across institutional and wholesale markets; “One of the most exciting aspects of this merger is the depth and breadth of complementary investment expertise that we can offer clients. We will continue to offer the world class products and services for which we have become globally renowned but will now operate with a greatly enhanced local, regional and global network to better service our clients, consultants and strategic partners. As we integrate our businesses over the coming months we are committed to maintaining our focus on investment excellence and the highest level of client service.”

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SSFS was established to provide financial planning services to all public sector employees and is owned by the NSW Government’s SAS Trustee Corporation (STC), also known as State Super. SSFS has its own investment management team and has been operating since 1990.

Simone Bouch, Head of Business Australasia, Standard Life Investments said:  “This investment from SSFS reflects the increasing confidence we are seeing in GARS from the Australian market.

“We are pleased that a growing number of Australian investors are able to benefit from the strong returns and low volatility that GARS offers. The proportion of super fund members who will move from the pre-retirement to the post-retirement stage will increase three-fold over the next decade and it is increasingly important that super funds adopt strategies to cope with market swings, while positioning them for future growth.”

Damian Graham, Chief Investment Officer, State Super Financial Services confirmed the investment in GARS is part of a broader restructure of its investments, aimed at building and better preserving investors’ savings. He said:

“Our focus is on providing our members with income certainty in their retirement.  The average age of an SSFS client is 66, with almost all being in the pension phase. We are adopting alternative investments as part of a different approach to managing and limiting downside risk. The global crisis underlined that volatility can have a dramatically bad impact on retirement savings and achieving reasonable returns needs to come with less volatility.

“We are attracted to GARS because of its strong track record and ability to perform well in a variety of market conditions. The strategy invests in traditional asset classes and also uses several advanced derivative strategies to construct a highly diversified liquid portfolio which can help withstand market shocks – an important attribute particularly for retired investors,” Mr Graham said.

GARS has a proven consistent four-year track record of returns for Australian investors. The multi-asset strategy delivered an overall return of 11.7% per annum for Australian investors, gross of fees, over the four years from inception in 2009 to 31 December 2013 .

The risk expectation for GARS is a third to half that of the equity market, with a target return of cash plus 5 per cent per annum (gross of fees), over rolling 3-year periods. The volatility of the fund over the four-year period has been just 4.5% compared to global equity volatility of 10% (12.8% for Australian equities).

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Matthew joins from JANA Investment Advisers, where he was responsible for business development, marketing and communications functions for almost seven years. Previously, he held analyst positions with IWL Limited and Coca Cola Amatil. Matthew brings over 18 years experience working in the financial services industry.

Matthew’s hire follows the appointment of Jill Shaw as Investment Director, responsible for developing the institutional business in Australasia. Jill joined the Sydney office on relocation from Standard Life Investments’ head office in Edinburgh, where she generated new sales and revenue for Standard Life Investments in Europe. Jill has almost 20 years experience working in the financial services industry and holds a BSC Honors in Mathematics.

Both Matthew and Jill report directly to Simone Bouch, Head of Australasia, Standard Life Investments.

Commenting on the appointments Simone Bouch said: “Matthew and Jill’s appointments are further evidence of Standard Life Investments’ long term commitment to the region and growing interest in our investment solutions.

“We are seeing increasing demand from Australian investors for Multi Asset and Fixed Income Absolute Returns Strategies and growing interest in Global Real Estate solutions, where we believe Standard Life Investments offers best of class capabilities.

“Matthew’s experience in business development and building retail operations is highly valuable as we look to expand our business into the wholesale sector and continue to grow our presence in Australasia.

“Jill brings a wealth of experience managing institutional relationships and exceptional knowledge of Standard Life Investments, having commenced with the business in 2006.

“The size and sophistication of the Australian market makes it an important region for Standard Life Investments and I am confident that we have the skills and expertise in place to provide clients with innovative investment solutions and high levels of service.”

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