Managed Funds, Australia methodology

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) is the prudential regulator of the Australian financial services industry. It oversees banks, credit unions, building societies, general insurance and reinsurance companies, life insurance corporations, friendly societies, registered financial corporations and large to medium superannuation funds.

Assets overseas includes all physical assets located outside of Australia and financial claims (eg. equity and debt securities) on non-residents whether purchased overseas or in Australia and irrespective of the currency in which they are denominated (see definition Resident/non resident ). Respondents to the ABS Survey of Financial Information are requested to report assets at their market value in $AUD equivalent.

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) is the Government's principal revenue collection agency and is responsible for the regulation and reporting of self-managed super funds (SMSFs).

A certificate of deposit is similar to a promissory note except that the drawer is a bank. Most bank issued certificates of deposit with an original term to maturity of one year or less are negotiable certificates of deposit (NCD). Transferable certificates of deposit with an original term to maturity greater than one year are included in bonds etc.

A bill of exchange is an unconditional order drawn (issued) by one party, sent to another party for acceptance and made out to, or to the order of, a third party, or to bearer. It is a negotiable instrument with an original term to maturity of 180 days or less. Although merchant banks were the promoters of the bill market in Australia, today almost all bills are bank accepted. Acceptance of a bill obliges the acceptor to pay the face value of the bill to the holder upon maturity.

Debt securities are divided into short term and long term using original term to maturity as the classificatory criterion. Long term securities are those with an original term to maturity of more than one year. Bonds are long term securities, which represent the issuer's pledge to pay the holder, on a date which, at the time of issue, is more than one year in the future, the sum of money shown on the face of the document. Until that future date the issuer usually promises to pay coupon interest to the holder quarterly or half-yearly at a rate which is fixed at the time the security is issued. These securities are therefore known as fixed interest securities in the professional market.

Bonds etc. includes the following types of securities:

• Treasury Bonds. These are issued to corporations and the general public by the Commonwealth Government.
• Inscribed stock which are issued by State government owned borrowing authorities and enterprises. These are known as semi government securities by professional traders.
• Debentures, transferable certificates of deposit and unsecured notes, which are collectively called corporate securities or medium term notes by brokers.
• Asset-backed bonds, such as mortgage-backed securities.
• Convertible notes, prior to conversion.
   

A cash management trust is a unit trust which is governed by a trust deed which generally confines its investments (as authorised by the trust deed) to financial securities available through the short term money market. Cash management trusts issue units in the trust that are redeemable by the unit holder on demand.

Commercial paper, also called promissory notes or one name paper in the professional market - is a written promise to pay a specified sum of money to the bearer at an agreed date. It is usually issued for terms ranging from 30 to 180 days and is sold to an investor at a simple discount to the face value. A promissory note is different from a bill of exchange in that it is not ‘accepted’ by a bank and is not endorsed by the parties which sell it in the market place.

Common funds are operated by Trustee Companies under relevant State Trustee Companies Acts. They permit trustee companies to combine depositors’ funds and other funds held in trust in an investment pool, and invest the funds in specific types of securities and/or assets. Cash and non cash common funds have the same investment strategy and economic functions as cash management trusts and public unit trusts respectively. However they do not operate in the same manner, in that they do not issue units, nor do they necessarily issue prospectuses.

Debt securities are securities which represent borrowed funds which must be repaid by the issuer. It includes short and long term securities.

Deposits are credit account balances with domestic deposit-taking institutions as defined by the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority (APRA). These are banks and all corporations registered under the Financial Sector (Collection of Data) Act 2001 except for intragroup financiers. Bonds, debentures, notes and transferable certificates of deposit issued by deposit-taking institutions are classified as bonds etc. and negotiable certificates of deposit issued by banks have been classified as bank certificates of deposit.

Derivatives are financial instruments whose value depends on the value of an underlying asset, an index or reference rate. Derivative contracts involve future delivery, receipt or exchange of financial items such as cash or another derivative instrument, or future exchange of real assets for financial items where the contract may be tradeable and has a market value. It includes options, interest rate swaps, currency swaps, credit default swaps, futures, forward rate agreements, forward foreign-exchange contracts and employee stock options.

This category comprises shares traded on an organised stock exchange, shares in unlisted companies, convertible notes after conversion, preference shares and units issued by both listed and unlisted unit trusts. Trust units are included in this classification because they have important characteristics of equities, such as entitlement to a share of the profits and of (on liquidation) the residual assets of the trust.

Friendly societies are organisations which are registered and regulated as such with APRA, and provide investment, health, educational and welfare benefits to their members.

An investment manager is an organisation that specialises in the investment of a portfolio of assets on behalf of, and subject to directions given by clients, such as superannuation funds and life insurance corporations. The funds which investment managers invest remain the asset of their clients and are not brought to account on the balance sheet of the investment manager. The ultimate responsibility for the investment remains with the client.

For the purposes of this publication, investment managers should satisfy the following criteria:

• be Australian resident entities (see resident/non-resident definition);
• offer pooled investment products (eg. wholesale and/or retail trusts) which are registered with ASIC; and individual portfolios (eg. mandates for institutional investors and/or separately managed accounts (SMAs)) for individuals;
• be managers who actively invest on behalf of clients who retain ownership of the assets; and
• predominately rely on management fees, rather than dividends and interest income, as the major part of their income.
• Investment managers are generally subsidiaries of life insurance offices, banks, merchant banks, or organisations related to these types of institutions. They can be either separately constituted legal entities or form a segment of a particular financial institution. 
   

Land and buildings refers to land and buildings held and the value of units in unitised buildings. New acquisitions are reported at acquisition cost and existing assets are reported at the latest available market valuation.

This includes all corporations regulated by APRA which provide life insurance. Most of the investment funds of life insurance offices are held in Statutory Funds. Statutory Funds of Life Insurance Offices have been set up under Commonwealth Government legislation and are analogous to trust funds. The legislation requires that the assets of any statutory fund must be kept separate and distinct from the assets of other statutory funds and any other assets of the company. All income received must be paid into and become an asset of the appropriate statutory fund and these assets are only available to meet the liabilities and expenses of that fund.

Loans are financial assets that are created when a creditor lends funds directly to a debtor, and are evidenced by documents that are not negotiable. The category includes overdrafts, instalment loans, mortgages, hire-purchase credit and loans to finance trade credit. Undrawn lines of credit are not recognised as a liability as they are contingent. Accounts payable/receivable are treated as a separate category in Other Financial Assets. It also includes liabilities of entities not described as deposit taking institutions, eg. State treasuries, and these are referred to as placements.

The term managed funds is used to describe the investments undertaken by those managed funds institutions and resident investment managers who engage in financial transactions in the managed funds market in Australia.

Managed funds institutions are those financial intermediaries which operate in the managed funds market by acquiring and incurring financial assets and liabilities respectively on their own balance sheet. Typically these institutions arrange for the ‘pooling’ of funds from a number of investors for the purpose of investing in a particular type or mix of assets, with a view to receiving an ongoing return or capital gain. However, funds of a speculative nature that do not offer redemption facilities (e.g. agriculture and film trusts) and funds not established for investment purposes (e.g. health funds and general insurance funds) are excluded. Included are life insurance corporations, superannuation (pension) funds, public offer (retail) unit trusts, friendly societies, common funds and cash management trusts.

Non-financial assets comprise all those assets which are not financial in nature: i.e. physical assets. For the purposes of these statistics they are broken down into only two categories - land and buildings, and other types of non-financial asset.

This covers any other financial claims on residents that do not fit into any other category, such as trade credit and interest accruals.

Other non-financial assets refers to all assets which are non financial in nature, not classified to overseas assets and are not land and buildings.

This covers trusts that do not fit into any other category. It may include wholesale non-financial trusts, such as property syndicates, film trusts, agricultural trusts and solicitors trusts.

A public offer (retail) unit trust is a trust which is governed by a trust deed; is or has been open to the general public to buy units; and allows unit holders to redeem or dispose of their units within a reasonable period of time on a well developed secondary market (eg. ASX) or has readily accessible redemption facilities offered by the management company in association with the trust.

Residents are persons, companies and other entities ordinarily domiciled in Australia. It includes Australian based branches and subsidiaries of foreign businesses. All foreign branches and subsidiaries of Australian businesses are included in non-resident entities.

These entities issue asset-backed securities, so called because these securities are backed by specific assets, usually residential mortgages. The securities can be short term (eg. commercial paper) or long term (eg. bonds).

Debt securities are divided into short term and long term using original term to maturity as the classificatory criterion. Short term securities are those with an original term to maturity of one year or less. Issuers of promissory notes and bills of exchange do negotiate roll-over facilities which allow them to use these instruments as sources of floating-rate long term funds. However, in these statistics the existence of roll-over facilities does not convert what are legally short term instruments into long term ones.

There are four types of short term securities shown in this publication: bills of exchange, treasury notes, bank certificates of deposit and commercial paper. All of these are issued at a discount to face value and are traded on well-established secondary markets with bills of exchange and certificates of deposit being the most actively traded. Professional traders call these short term instruments money market securities. Treasury notes are inscribed stock in that ownership is recorded in a register maintained by the issuer and a non-transferable certificate of ownership is issued, but the owner does not physically hold the documents. The other short term securities are bearer securities, that is the owner is not registered with the issuer but physically holds the documents. Bearer securities are payable to the holder on maturity and transferable by delivery.

Superannuation funds are indefinitely continuing funds maintained for the provision of benefits for either members of the fund, or the dependants of members in the event of retirement or death of the member. The statistics include both public and private sector superannuation funds that either directly invest on their own behalf, or use fund managers on a fee for service basis. It includes superannuation funds regulated under the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act 1993 by APRA and self managed superannuation funds (SMSFs) regulated by the Australian Taxation Office.

Treasury notes are inscribed instruments issued by the Commonwealth Government with original maturity terms of five, 13 or 26 weeks.

Wholesale financial trusts invest in financial assets and are only open to institutional investors (eg. life insurance corporations, superannuation funds) and high net worth individuals due to high entry levels. However some are indirectly open to the public via distribution channels such as platforms. Wholesale non-financial trusts, such as property syndicates are excluded; these are included with Other trusts.