Funds Management Centre Page

The Funds Management Research Centre

The Centre's objective is to directly assist Australia's global financial centre aspirations and the efficient management of its savings flows by facilitating more and better research aimed at monitoring the performance, effectiveness and efficiency of the Insurance and Managed Funds Industry. In March 1999 this sector managed almost $1.5 trillion of funds and is forecast to grow by as much as 238% in the years to 2015, making it one of the largest and most expansive sectors of the financial system.

Search SIRCA's research paper database for Funds Management research output.

Objectives:

The Centre's objectives focus on improving the efficiency, performance and security of the Superannuation and Managed Funds industry through research involving analysis of:

Benchmarking and Asset Pricing Models
Impact of Performance Reporting and Financial Reporting
Performance Ratings
Risk Management Procedures
Market Transparency and the Flow of Information

These objectives will be achieved in association with numerous industry partners. A further product of the Centre's operations will be an improvement in the quality and the detail of research data in this area.

Current and Future Research Programmes:

Analysis of asset pricing models and various benchmarks which can be used to assess managed fund performance, including comparative evaluation of the published performance metrics and ratings utilised within the industry
Analysis of bond pricing models, bond portfolio evaluation metrics, duration based measures and immunisation techniques, plus other metrics for managing bond portfolio risk
Analysis of venture capital industry and opening and long-run performance of initial and seasoned equity offerings
Investigation into the role of performance reporting and financial reporting in the insurance and managed fund industry in the broader context of corporate governance, corporate financial policies and policy-holder interests
Investigation of the risk management techniques within the industry, hedging techniques, portfolio exposure, Value at Risk and other metrics for assessing hedging requirements
Analysis of the framework of regulation and compliance standards within the industry

Impact on Industry

Various research activities conducted by the centre draw directly on industry data thus producing a comprehensive and detailed review of the performance as well as strengths and weaknesses of the Australian superannuation and managed fund industries.

Partnerships

The Funds Management Research Centre has established a strong working partnership with ASSIRT Rating agency, a subsidiary of Sealcorp Limited. As a recently established centre, it is also currently seeking to establish further relations with firms and associations operating in the industry