New products
Fidelity fix
Four Fidelity funds, three of them international, have been added by investment administrator Navigator to its platforms. Navigator has also included international funds managed by Merrill Lynch and Equity Trustees. Navigator research manager Stuart Fechner said the international funds were added in response to financial adviser demand. Of the four Fidelity funds included, two are country specific. “There are very few fund opportunities available to investors providing access to allow a strategic investment into countries such as China and India,” Fechner said.
Mars launch
The recent stellar performance of commodity markets has prompted the separate release of two capital guaranteed commodity products for retail investors, with Macquarie Portfolio Management launching its Macquarie Comets Trust and Alpha Group unveiling its product called Mars.
Macquarie manager, equity markets group, Pia Cooke said Macquarie Comets Trust offered investors returns linked to global commodity and financial futures, including energy, metals, agricultural products, currencies and bonds.
The Mars product, released by Alpha Group, a syndicate of financial planners that provides wholesale structured products for self-managed super funds, also offers a capital guarantee to investors.
APRA swells
The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has recruited nearly 200 extra staff and grown its budget by close to $40 million in the past five years, according to its annual report tabled in Parliament late last month.
What is more, the financial services industry should brace itself for a regulator with even larger budgets and more staff in coming years.
That is the bottom line of APRA’s latest annual report, which reveals staff numbers within the regulator have grown from 396 in 2001-02, to 589 this financial year, and its expenditure has surged by nearly 40 per cent over the same period from $52.5 million to an expected $92.1 million.
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