While traditionally agribusiness is a topic that clients tend to think about only as tax time approaches, agribusiness investments can play a greater part in portfolio construction than merely being a tax consideration. We asked two agribusiness research houses for their opinion about individual projects...

When will the Australian Taxation office issue product rulings, and under what circumstances does it withdraw them? These were two of the issues canvassed by Gary Hammersley, national business manager with the ATO when speaking at the recent Lonsec Agribusiness Conference. Hammersley contends the ATO tries to look at issues from the taxpayers perspective...

How does agribusiness perform when compared with other asset classes? It was the hot question of the day at the recent Lonsec Agribusiness Conference...

While most financial advisers at a recent Lonsec workshop on agribusiness agreed that agribusiness can play an important role in portfolios, they also expressed that there are many downsides to the current crop of agribusiness offerings available to retail investors, and that many offerings simply don't meet their client's needs...

Given the long-term timeframe of superannuation investors – 20 or 30 years – and the long-term nature of many agribusiness ventures, the two make a good match, says Frank Delaunty, managing director of Dirt Management Agricultural Investment Managers, managers of Warakirri Agriculture, in explaining his product to attendees at the recent Lonsec Agribusiness Conference...

Research opinion on Asian equity funds was thin on the ground from research houses, with Lonsec, S&P, and IWL the noteable exceptions, while Zenith provided a coherent rationale for why it doesn't rate individual funds in the sector, and doesn't think advisers should either. Interestingly, given they also research direct equities, both IWL and Lonsec both agreed that the use of managed funds for international equities exposure is a preferred strategy over direct equity investments...

The bigger the better, right? Fund size, that is. The sentiment is understandable, but those adhering to it might be disappointed. Conventional wisdom in the funds industry suggests that the larger the fund, the harder it is to achieve excess returns, and a recent paper from Lazard suggests this is more true for growth managers, than value managers...

Delegate feedback from our second annual conference - THE Investment Conference 2003 on 18/19 August 2003 in Sydney - was very, very positive. And with 50 investment experts presenting during 30 sessions over the two days, it was in the words on one delegate "no junket". Critical Issues Forum presentations can be accessed via this article...

Always amongst the top three most popular sessions at THE Investment Conference 2003 (18/19 August 2003), the researchers and asset consultants show what they've got up their sleeves for the next year, presenting their asset class models - that is, the securities they've blended together in each asset class...

Most of us hear "property" and think "listed". At THE Investment Conference 2003 (18/19 August 2003), we devoted a session to challenging this assumption. Is listed property really an asset class? What diversification does it provide in a portfolio? And if it's so great, why don't researchers and fund managers allocate more to it? Fund managers have begun going offshore for property - what benefits does that bring to a portfolio?...

In the US, more than half of all equity funds are managed by a team, leaving a lot of solo "star" managers. US-based Bloomberg Wealth Manager recently highlighted a US study looking at which performs better - solo managers or investment teams?

Boutique managers are becoming increasingly popular, but do they add value? Yes and No, according to van Eyk Research managing director Stephen van Eyk in his presentation to the recent inaugural meeting of the Portfolio Construction Forum Researchers’ Roundtable. The following article summarises Stephen's rationale, and links to his presentation, including performance analysis of more than 30 boutique, medium and large Australian equity fund managers.