News Round Up

Property hot, Managed funds not, Style police, Just call me Russell, CFS buys up.

Monday, July 21st 2003, 1:46AM

Managed funds are out of favour with investors as a place for returns, according to the latest ASB Bank investor confidence survey.

The survey shows that people think that residential rental property and term deposits/bank accounts are the best way to make money at the moment.

The lack of confidence comes just when the figures have come out showing that managed funds have had a strong quarter in the three months to June. [MORE]

We've got style, mon

Morningstar has launched its Style Box for Australian share managed funds. The company says that style box is a unique graphical tool showing a fund’s true investment style and market capitalisation.

Morningstar Australia chief executive Scott Cooley says that style box "brings a whole new dimension to fund analysis, selection, and portfolio construction in Australia.

"Advisers will be able to see at a glance exactly what a fund’s investing in, and its style characteristics, and use this to build and manage more diversified and style-controlled portfolios for investors. Style box shows you what a fund is actually made of, rather than having to rely on the fund’s name, or what it’s supposed to be," Cooley said.

Morningstar plans to add style boxes for international share funds in the coming months.

Name change
Frank Russell has a new name in New Zealand. The company, formerly known as Frank Russell Company (NZ) Limited is now called Russell Investment Group Limited and will commonly refer to itself as Russell.

CFS adds new property
Colonial First State Property Trust has bought a retail building close to its South City Shopping Centre in Christchurch.

Colonial paid $4.41 million for the new property, which has a furniture business among its tenants and provides an annual rent of about $395,000. The trust bought the building when it came up for tender.

It is looking to add more retail property to its portfolio because of the sector's growth profile. Currently most of the builings it owns are in the office sector.

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