EDITORS MESSAGE JUNE

IT’S all about the ‘alpha’ factor.

Every business strives to outperform the market, but sometimes to do so you need to make decisions that challenge the status quo. In this month’s Brisbane Business News, we speak with Wilson HTM chairman Steve Wilson, whose priority growth fund has outperformed the ASX significantly since 2005.

He calls this difference between the market and client returns ‘alpha’, with long-term investment strategies at the forefront of the next big trends. He discusses where his funds management team are investing right now, following a pedigree that successfully launched the IPO of Suncorp Bank in 1988 – a move which was mocked at the time but managed to prove the critics wrong.

While on the topic of IPOs, infrastructure developer Seymour Whyte is now an ASX-lister, as it continues to take on the big tenders, including the Port of Brisbane Motorway. The success of Queensland’s infrastructure IPOs in recent years has little to be desired with the likes of Brisconnections and Rivercity Motorway, but in leadership we speak with Seymour Whyte’s CEO Brian Riggall about a proven track record.

There’s also the proposed float and alternative bids for Queensland Rail, a topic which has a lot of potential to heat up and then there’s the Henry Tax Review. What does it really mean for SME.

With hysteria around the European debt crisis and the Resource Super Profits Tax (RSPT), the word GFC II started making its way around some circles last month, while others saw the market falls as a normal adjustment. Whatever way you look at it, now might be a time to look at alternative investments.

In this month’s edition we speak to a few industry gurus about art as an investment class. The Art Market Handbook shows that the art industry had its own ‘alpha’ over the ASX recently, but such statistics only follow public sales. For collector Steve Wilson, if you only invest in art for money, you probably won’t make any.

In export we track the movements of mining technology company Runge into Mongolia and Russia, Pizza Capers’ foray into Singapore, while Austrade’s Washington-based senior trade commissioner talks up a ‘new US’ where opportunities have opened up.

This month’s young entrepreneur Vanessa Jordan is one example of a Brisbane businessperson about to take advantage of the ‘new US’, albeit not in the public sector. Her electronics development company E3 Style has made its mark in Australia, with growing markets in South Africa and New Zealand.

This month’s finance feature keeps your business in the loop as to tax changes and not losing sight of strategy. And companies looking at ways to retain staff can’t go past our education feature, while in HR a recent survey rings warning bells around too much multitasking for employees. Plenty to keep you informed.