News Round Up

Restructuring Russell, That's it from me: NZIT, Arcus goes for RCM.

Monday, March 3rd 2008, 5:23AM

by Maddy Milicich

Russell Investment Group has announced the merging of its Australian and New Zealand institutional and retail (adviser) businesses into a single group, called Investor Services.

Russell managing director Australasia, Alan Schoenheimer, said the restructure was due to a changing climate and client needs. "The financial landscape is constantly evolving and today we find a growing number of our institutional clients are looking to provide advice to their individual members, while our adviser clients are seeking to access Russell's institutional investment consulting services."

The Investor Services group will be headed by Chris Corneil, who was previously head of Russell's retail investment services business.

That's it from me: NZIT

New Zealand Investment Trust had its first general meeting this week, in regards to its voluntary wind-up and reconstruction of the company.

New Zealand shareholders were given the choice to either receive cash, or roll over some or all their investment into the Brook Tasman Fund.

It was announced at the meeting that 2,257,956, or 23.5% of shares are to be transferred into Brook Tasman Fund, and 7,107,190, almost 74% of total shares are to be converted into cash.

The other 2.5% of shares are to be rolled over into UK company, CF iimia Growth and Income Fund.

Managing the managers
Arcus Investment Management, a locally based manager of managers, has appointed London-based RCM to manage an international equity portfolio.

Arcus head of research, Matthew Goldsack believes, "the introduction of RCM to our active international equity strategy should prove to be a real value-add for our clients."

Arcus is a subsidiary of AXA New Zealand and manages over $5 billion on behalf of clients, including Spicers Portfolio Management, New Zealand Financial Planning, AXA Wealth Management and AXA KiwiSaver.

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