Property Investment Funds: What Are They All About

Property has always had a prominent role in Australian investment strategies. ...

No soft landing in store for Sigma investors

THERE has to be more going on, and going wrong, at Sigma Pharmaceuticals than yesterday's update reveals.

Danger of hedging your bets

The promise of high returns and low risk proved too good to be true.

New AXA offer looks like a slam dunk

It would take a brave or stupid person to punt that AMP and AXA SA's revised takeover offer for AXA Asia Pacific of $12.85 billion will be anything but a slam dunk when the six independent directors meet this week. Besides upping the offer by an extra 54c, which is equivalent to an extra $1.16 billion in cash, and taking currency fluctuations out of the equation, the AXA Asia Pacific board, headed by Rick Allert, has also managed to squeeze something out for itself: an extra board seat on the merged entity.

Gold's record run may not be over yet

Gold has enjoyed a record-breaking run in recent months, pushing through $US1000 ($1093) an ounce and now driving towards $US1200.

In a time of tumult, ANZ eyes wealth

AS THE market awaits the next move in the $11.6 billion takeover bid for AXA Asia Pacific Holdings from its French parent AXA and local insurance company AMP, hedge funds are taking a punt that the deal might fall over and AXA and AMP will be snaffled up.

'Chatter' holding back BHP

BHP Billiton cannot wait for next week's anniversary of its failed scrip bid for Rio Tinto to pass. Not because it wants to bid again, but because it believes that hedge fund chatter that it will return with a bid is holding back its share price.

Market volatility puts shorts back in fashion

With a resurgence in short selling, regulators must make sure the financial system is as transparent as possible.

Shine a light on it: short-sellers are back and greater transparency is needed

Last week a billionaire hedge fund investor, the famous Enron short-seller Jim Chanos, emerged from the hedge fund abyss with news that he was shorting the entire Chinese economy.

Whoever wins, there'll be five left at the table

C raig Dunn is scheduled to give a lunchtime speech in Melbourne today, a date that apparently was set quite some time ago.

Packer polishes up GEMS fund

A year after sounding the retreat from the funds management business with the delisting and downsizing of the Ellerston GEMS fund, James Packer's Ellerston Capital is expanding the business and has plans to reopen the flagship fund to new investors and raise money for a range of new investment vehicles.

Taxing question wrestles 'tax-neutral' haven to the ground

Britain will make an example of the Cayman Islands, writes Landon Thomas.

Harvey's getting young in the tooth

Scott Rochfort will only bare his fangs when it's a full moon.

Horror days recalled

Collapse, followed by chaos, in every corner of world financial markets last September began 28 days that shook the world. One year on, nine people at the centre of the action give their candid accounts of the most pivotal moments. Ruth Williams, Mark Hawthorne and Eric Johnston report.

Soros hedge funds buy into Marengo plans for PNG copper

HEDGE funds run by billionaire New York investor George Soros have emerged as a backer of plans by Perth-based Marengo Mining to crack it as a big-time copper and molybdenum producer from its Yandera project, south-west of the Papua New Guinea seaport of Madang.

Illiquid, unlisted but less volatile

Super funds like assets that hold value, writes Jan McCallum.

Alternative assets boost super

The difference in performance between industry funds and retail funds comes down to the investment mix.