Wealth
Insights on wealth management, investments, and personal finance.
Global media business Azzet is joining the growing legion of alternative investment firms tapping the burgeoning private credit market in Australia by launching an offering to private clients seeking higher fixed interest returns on their capital. US-based Azzet Inc. has started rolling out a private credit offering to the Australian market to enable investors to maintain yield on their capital as interest rates begin to fall across major global markets including the United States and United Kingdom. Azzet’s private investment division, Azzet Private, began appointing staff in Australia in recent months as it prepares to release a series of low volatility, capital stable opportunities available to clients with $500,000 or more in investable capital. For some investors, private credit has an attractive risk-return trade-off. It pays a relatively high interest rate and tends to exhibit low volatility relative to publicly traded assets, like corporate bonds. Azzet Private is expecting to attract investors already familiar with non-traditional banking institutions, or those wanting to make the move into private credit. Private credit has become a popular asset class with Australians seeking low-involvement, capital-
Incredibly, the average Australian university vice chancellor reportedly earns almost twice as much as the Prime Minister. Furthermore, they earn substantially more than their respective state premiers. According to the latest data, vice chancellors' salaries in 2023 averaged $1.049 million. The University of Canberra's outgoing Vice Chancellor Paddy Nixon received a $1.785 million package prior to his sudden departure. This is in circumstances not fully explained by management. In contrast, the Prime Minister earns $587,000, less than half of the top paid vice chancellors. The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) released its November 2024 report, highlighting several critical issues within Australian universities. The report calls for an urgent federal parliamentary inquiry into university governance and workforce planning. It cites a "deep governance crisis" that threatens higher education institutions' stability and quality. The NTEU points out that universities have spent hundreds of millions on corporate consultants, leading to a "boom-bust" hiring cycle and a lack of workforce planning. The report also criticises university executives' overpayment, noting that 306 executives earn more than their respectiv
The Australian Government is making more changes to its $3.9 trillion superannuation industry to strengthen outcomes for the almost 15 million people in the country’s mandatory retirement savings system. Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the new package of reforms would focus on the retirement phase of superannuation as more than 2.5 million Australians were expected to leave the workforce over the next decade. He said the focus would be on four key areas: enhancing independent guidance by expanding and refreshing resources on the Moneysmart website to give retirees easy access to independent, reliable information on retirement options delivering better retirement products by improving the innovative income stream regulations and supporting more innovation in retirement products establishing best practice and voluntary principles on retirement products to guide the industry in designing modern, high‑quality retirement products that support Australians’ financial security in retirement, and increasing transparency through a new reporting framework for retirement outcomes, offering members greater transparency and create common understanding for success in the retirement phase. “These changes will empower more Australians
Australian superannuation fund HESTA has agreed to make payments to members who were negatively affected by the revaluation of unlisted assets at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) said HESTA made downwards adjustments to five single sector Choice options invested in unlisted assets on 20 March 2020, but did not adjust other options with exposure to the same underlying assets until one week later. APRA was concerned the fund’s processes for out-of-cycle revaluations of unlisted assets were not adequate for the deteriorating market conditions and the valuation decision in March 2020 was unfair to some members. APRA said in a statement one HESTA member was about $17,000 worse off. HESTA said it had been in discussions with APRA about adjustments to the number of units some members acquired in certain investment options during the period of significant market volatility. The fund said upon further analysis it determined that an adjustment to the number of units issued at the time be made for some members. “There have been no findings of breaches or contraventions of the law. The median value of the adjustment will be around $17
New data has found that older Australians have been spending more despite the cost of living crisis, while young people continue to cut back. The analysis comes from Commonwealth Bank and examined seven million of their customer’s de-identified payments. Younger Australians aged 18-19 have continued to cut back on clothing, travel and household goods purchases, reducing the spending on these by 1.9%. They also reduced spending on essentials such as petrol and bills by 2.3%. People aged 30-39 were also spending spent less, with a 1.1% cut back in essential spending and 1% reduction in the discretionary categories. However, people aged 60-69 lifted their spending by 3.9% overall, and the over-70s came out on top, increasing their spending by 7.7%. The results showed that this was the second year in a row that a generational spending gap has appeared with Australians, a trend that has been documented more broadly by the Grattan Institute. The Institute has found previously that in 1994, the 65-74 cohort had around three times the wealth of those aged 25-34. However, by 2020, this gap had grown almost five times as much. Wade Tubman from CommBank iQ said that the results from the
