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Diversa board backs chief executive pay rise, bonus amid First Guardian fallout
Diversa Trustees' board paid chief executive Andrew Peterson a bonus of $770,000 and increased his salary at the height of the First Guardian collapse, an inquiry heard, doubling down on its confidence in his leadership and suitability to lead the business.
Active equity managers lag benchmarks: SPIVA
Most active equity managers in Australia underperformed their benchmarks in the first half of 2026, despite market conditions that appeared supportive of stock picking, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices' latest SPIVA Australia Scorecard.
CareSuper earns place among pension fund giants, ART breaks into top 20
Australian Retirement Trust (ART) has cracked the top 20 ranking of the world's largest pension funds, while CareSuper has debuted on WTW's annual Global Top 300 Pension Funds report.
MAM acquires half of Aware Super's Victorian land registry stake
Macquarie Asset Management (MAM) has acquired Aware Super's 50% stake in Secure Electronic Registries Victoria (SERV), the private operator of Victoria's register of land.
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Digital assets and where they stand in 2026
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Featured Profile
Sarah Shaw
GLOBAL PORTFOLIO MANAGER
4D INFRASTRUCTURE
4D INFRASTRUCTURE
It wasn't confidence that prompted Sarah Shaw to walk away from established investment houses and co-found 4D Infrastructure in 2015. It was something she believes is far more important: courage. By Vinny Vucago.
The Financial Standard podcast Tune in each week as we discuss the latest developments in Australia's wealth management industry. |  |
When will the banks and ASIC get it? It's about a sales culture. Re-training, particularly if it applies just to advisers, cures nothing.
I know a few bank advisers. If left to their own devices, and to be paid a decent salary without sales/points justification, these folks will give good advice.
But the old Tied Office "push push" mentality is still there, now mixed with bank culture of flog, flog, flog-product is king. Follow the bonus trail all the way to the top.
If they haven't started, the banks should go to a fee for advice model on all advice scenarios, with a % of the fee to the advisers - say 65%. Encourage advisers to build a business the bank, and don't look at them as just another talking head flogging their products.
Should be a no brainer. But those management bonuses, based on production, replicating the old tied agent industry some of us experienced, is too ingrained.
Management has snouts in the trough. An easy way of counting those nostrils is to count the management types on the annual conference tour.
Better still, separate product from sales, industry wide.
Where has common sense gone? Bill Brown can see it, in the eyes of a normal person it is not ok to place clients into high risk products without their knowledge or authorization. It is also not ok to blatantly lie to their clients and make false and misleading statements. You don't have to train advisers that it is not ok to do these things. Start on why this is allowed to happen in the first place.