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Australia’s economic future lies to the north

By Angela Mentis | August 31st, 2015

It’s time all of Australia realised our playing field is much bigger than we believe. The reality is it is global, but increasingly centred on Asia and its growing middle class. Every day Australian businesses find more ways to move up the value chain and export our products, professional services and expertise.

Our proximity to Asia provides the Australian economy and Australian business with huge opportunities. Today there are an estimated 500 million middle-class people in Asia. That figure is expected to rise to 1.7 billion by 2020 and to more than 3.2 billion by 2030 when they will account for 66 per cent of the global middle class.

By 2050 it is estimated Asian food imports alone will grow by $US470 billion ($655bn), offering opportunities for huge growth in our agricultural exports. Asia’s share of global output has risen from around 15 per cent in 1952 to almost 30 per cent in 2010, and it is forecast to exceed 50 per cent by 2050.

Volatility in sharemarkets globally in the past week illustrates just how important China’s economy is. Investors are right to be watchful, but it is important we take a long-term view. That’s because the potential is enormous. Are we doing our best as a nation to realise that potential? Are we giving Brand Australia every chance to succeed? Free-trade agreements are opening doors in the region, the falling dollar is making Australian business more competitive, and technology can enable a small business to compete with a big one.

As Australia’s biggest business bank, NAB knows well the opportunity for our customers who are facing north. About half of our institutional banking clients, a third of our corporate clients and one in 10 of our SME clients currently trade with Asia because of the opportunities to grow. Australia is uniquely positioned as more of Asia shifts from “build” to “grow and consume”. While resources remain critical to our future, the burgeoning Asian middle-class wants our services — our expertise in health, education, governance and business, financial and professional services. The demand for agriculture grows daily because in Asia, where food security is paramount, Brand Australia means clean, green and fresh.

Australian businesses growing north include Shepparton-based Pactum Dairy Group which NAB helped introduce to then develop a relationship with China’s Bright Foods and New Hope Group, resulting in a supply agreement for high-quality milk. And then there’s Skybury Tropical Plantation from far north Queensland. Skybury is experiencing growing demand for its single-origin Arabica coffee among coffee lovers in Asia. These are just two of many Australian companies whose futures are being propelled by the Asian demand for Australian produce and expertise.

The opportunity in Asia is not limited to exports. We also see our role for Australian business and the economy as the bridge that extends both ways. Just as the trade flows shift north, increasingly the investment flows are coming south from Asia. I was recently in Hong Kong and Singapore with major clients and institutions who are hungry for opportunities in Australia because of the long-term value. They have the capital to invest and are attracted by our natural resources, stability as a nation and economy; and in particular the huge potential pipeline of infrastructure ripe for investment.

This long-term approach our Asian clients take is something Australia’s political and business leaders must heed, and the National Reform Summit co-hosted by The Australian and The Australian Financial Review last Wednesday is a show of intent. But the hard work is ahead of us. We must think and act long-term if we are to not just talk and plan for the next phase of nation-building but deliver it.

In these pages two weekends ago, The Australian foreign editor Greg Sheridan warned of the risk to Australia’s business reputation posed by the mixed signals sent to investors through decisions such as the cancellation of contracts for the East West Link in Melbourne and campaigns against the China free-trade agreement. My meetings in Asia tell me these investor concerns are real.

The nation must recognise and remember that foreign investment brings new wealth, new opportunity and jobs. That’s why NAB’s submission to Infrastructure Australia’s first national infrastructure audit advocates for certainty over which projects will be developed. NAB argues government policy needs to be formed on the back of an agreed plan of infrastructure priorities, based on transparent cost-benefit analysis. This will help realise priority projects by assuring investor confidence — confidence vital at a time when Australia is competing with other markets for investment.

Corporate Australia has a significant role to play in advocating for reforms to ensure Australia’s long-term infrastructure requirements are met, but this leadership must extend to our elected representatives. A bipartisan and depoliticised long-term approach has the capacity to deliver greater confidence in the infrastructure pipeline, thereby elevating Australia as a preferred destination for offshore capital.

Our future is in facing north. The potential and possibility is there for enduring growth for the prosperity of generations to come. Build Brand Australia and build our nation.

This article was originally published at The Australian.

Sectors: Business, Finance

Ethical funds get the green light

By Catherine Robson | May 20th, 2015

Everyone wants positive returns from their investments, but what if you could do good in the world while you were making money?

This is the goal of ethical investing, also known as sustainable or socially responsible investing. Proponents argue that not only is it possible to do good, but in the long term it’s actually more financially rewarding. The theory is that companies that do less harm, look after their staff and are well managed provide better returns.

There are numerous examples of thriving companies with a strong social conscience, such as United States ice-cream maker Ben & Jerry’s, whose activism resulted in the development of chlorine-free food packaging and sustainable agriculture in the 1990s.

Online retailer Zappos​ started from nothing in 1999 and was sold 10 years later for $1.2 billion, while consistently being listed as one of the world’s most ethical companies.

The challenge of ethical investment is that ethics are very personal and mean different things to different people. It can also be very labour intensive not only to perform investment due diligence, but also to assess a company’s sustainability credentials and, as such, ethical investment funds can be expensive.

These challenges aside, there are several great ways to concurrently meet investment and social objectives:

  • Start with superannuation Most funds have a socially responsible investment investment option and the long-term nature of super is a great fit for the extend timelines needed for companies which, by definition, don’t take shortcuts. There are even super funds that are entirely devoted not only to making investments in ethical companies but to use their influence to agitate for positive change in corporate behaviour and government policy.
  • Specialised managed funds There are a number of actively managed ethical funds, ranging from light green – a negative screening that avoids companies with adverse social or environmental impacts – to dark green, which select organisations that achieve positive social or environmental outcomes.
  • Modified index portfolios These offer relatively low-cost access to a broad index with an ethical overlay, most often excluding tobacco and controversial weapons. Depending on your ethical stance, these exchange traded funds facilitate an ethical approach without some of the high investment management fees, which sometimes characterise the SRI sector.
  • Build your own With the ability to inexpensively trade Australian and international shares with almost unlimited capacity for DIY research via the internet, it’s possible to build a portfolio that meets your moral code. However, all the commonsense investing rules still apply, so make sure you have adequate diversification, don’t try to time the market, and don’t let your emotions get in the way of making good investment decisions.

Catherine Robson is a financial planner and CEO of Affinity Private.

This article was originally published in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Sectors: Finance

Don’t let the tax tail wag the investment dog

By Catherine Robson | December 4th, 2014

Most of us want to pay less tax and achieving tax efficiency is a critical wealth creation tool – the less tax you pay, the more money you have to either meet your needs today or to reinvest for the future.

However one of the best ways to lose money is to let tax have a disproportionate influence on investment decision-making.

The most obvious example are the managed investment schemes which proliferated in the late 1990s and early 2000s, such as films, olives, emus and trees. It’s not to say that all investors lost money from this sector, in fact the first Crocodile Dundee movie made millionaires from many of its investors.

The problem with most of the schemes, was that investors looked at the tax benefit first and enticed by its attractiveness, treated the underlying investment as somewhat incidental.

When many of these schemes collapsed under the weight of their own debt and high cost structures, investors had indeed received the promised tax benefits, but had also lost all of their invested capital.

It’s easy to point to the specifics of managed investment schemes, however we can all let tax override our investment judgement from time to time.

For example, negative gearing into property can encourage huge borrowings and big associated risks only to save a small amount of tax and Self-Managed Super Fund trustees have been known to see the words “fully franked dividend” and look no further before deciding to buy one share in preference of another.

Reluctance to pay tax can also be damaging. In 2005 I met a senior executive of an ASX100 listed company who had been issued shares in his employer at listing. The subsequent dramatic increase in the share price meant that they came to represent 90 per cent of his entire wealth.

The need to diversify into other assets to reduce risk was obvious but he didn’t want to pay the hefty capital gains tax bill. Instead, he chose to borrow against the stock, leveraging up his lifestyle in the process. As the share price fell by more than 75 per cent during the Global Financial Crisis, not only did his capital gains tax problem disappear, but he came very close to losing everything, including his house.

To ensure that the tax tail is not wagging the investment dog, ask yourself the following questions:
• What is the expected investment return in the absence of the tax benefits?
• How does this compare with similar investments subject to similar risks?
• Would I make the investment if the tax advantages were not available, in which case they become just one aspect of total return or ‘icing on the cake’?
• Am I taking additional risks to avoid paying tax?

This article was originally published at: http://www.smh.com.au/money/tax/dont-let-the-tax-tail-wag-the-investment-dog-20141127-11v7ga.html#ixzz3KsxZPsOi

 

Sectors: Finance