Mergers & acquisitions
Super system on the inexorable path towards ten mega-funds
With the super industry facing into headwinds that raise the floor on minimum scale and increase complexity, the pressure towards further consolidation should ultimately prove unstoppable, and a natural end-point could be ten mega-funds over $200 billion in size managing more than 90 per cent of system assets. The path to that destination, however, could be bumpy.
Featured Homepage Posts
Future Fund: AI world order defined by US-China split will hurt capital owners
A geostrategic standoff between the US and China over AI would be “extremely damaging for capital owners” according to the $337 billion Future Fund, which outlined four “secular scenarios” around AI and its investment implications in its latest position paper.
Private equity
Rest Super’s selective approach to PE pays off as program comes of age
Rest Super has built its private equity program around a deliberately selective approach to manager and deal selection, favouring a concentrated roster of external partners and proactively seeking out top PE firms rather than waiting for them to come knocking. Head of private markets Marina Pasika unpacks the program’s coming of age and what powered an asset class return more than double the peer average in the last financial year.
Business strategy
ASFA taps Linda Elkins as chair amid peak body battle
The Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia has nominated former Colonial First State executive and AMP director Linda Elkins as the new chair of its board, as the peak body jostles with the Financial Services Council for primacy in representing the $3 trillion APRA-regulated super sector.
19 August, 2026
Retirement Leaders Summit
13 – 15 October, 2026
Fiduciary Investors Symposium
3 – 4 February, 2027
Chair Forum
Analysis
Prime Super merger shows small fund problems aren’t going away
The $8 billion Prime Super’s move to pursue a successor fund transfer with Aware shows that the existential problems facing small funds aren’t going away. In fact, with administration and retirement dominating boardrooms and headlines, they might be getting worse.
Leadership & profiles
GESB CEO calls time: ‘Past regime of default super’ no longer sustainable
GESB chief executive Ben Palmer is set to leave the Western Australian government super fund, ending a 13-year tenure after steering the fund through the most significant change in its history. In a rare interview, Palmer examines the past, present and future of super and explains why GESB is treating platforms, not profit-to-member funds, as its benchmark.
Profiles
Why HESTA’s ‘joined-up thinking’ is one of its CIO’s favourite things
Sonya Sawtell-Rickson joined HESTA as the health industry workers’ super fund was taking steps towards investment internalisation and a total portfolio approach. She says the moves have been vindicated not only by member returns but in the “joined-up” conversations the now-$96 billion fund has with the companies it invests in.
Member engagement
What is really going on behind the Epic Retirement Tick v2.0
The Epic Retirement Tick, launched last year by the Epic Retirement Institute and Chant West, provides consumers with an overview of super funds deemed to be doing a good job for members in retirement. The criteria behind the Tick are designed to evolve, and to reflect changing practice among funds.
Governance
CGT, negative gearing reforms reflect Australian values
Labor has built a generational political brand, and one that endures in the face of some major challenges here and abroad, Conexus Financial founder and managing director Colin Tate told the 50th ALP National Conference in Adelaide. But it must push back against extreme demands on AI and technology if it is to boost productivity and seize a huge economic growth opportunity.
Industry & regulation
Super complaints expected to reach 8000 in 2026: AFCA
Superannuation complaints to AFCA are on track to exceed 8000 this year, a second consecutive year of around 30 per cent increases. Heather Gray, who is retiring in May after six years as lead ombudsman for superannuation, told the authority’s Member Forum that the answer to reducing complaints lies in empowering funds’ IDR teams and communicating with complainants and AFCA early. The forum heard that handling unreasonable people is a critical skill.
Business strategy
‘True organic growth’: AMP CEO hails super inflow turnaround
AMP’s superannuation and investments business has recorded its first positive half-year net cashflows since 2017, with chief executive Blair Vernon crediting strong returns and a beefed-up digital offer for bringing members to the fund directly.
CIO Series
CFS CIO warns on AI ecosystem’s tangled capital web
The scale of the financial web that binds the corporate AI ecosystem together has never been seen before in markets, and investors have little understanding of how and where it could break in the event of a serious repricing, according to Colonial First State chief investment officer Jonathan Armitage.
Investments
Why UniSuper’s John Pearce thinks the data centre party is winding down
The demand for AI driving data centre construction might be “insatiable”, but the chief investment officer of the $166 billion UniSuper thinks that investors could be taking on technology debt and misreading the regulatory tea leaves as they rush to buy digital infrastructure.
