Former ARIA chief investment officer, Andre Morony, has joined Catholic Super’s investment management group, the investment decision making body that includes board and staff members of the fund.
Chief investment officer, Tim Hughes, said the fund had made a big effort to develop an investment governance model that provided for solid board input while ensuring there was a strong focus on decisions being made by those with the time, skills and expertise needed to make them. The investment management group was not a board committee as such but provided expertise in investment decision making, with Morony approached to be an independent member. “That includes both the fund’s executive staff and appropriate outside appointments,” he said. “We are delighted to have him on board with his depth of experience and extensive skill base.” Morony was also appointed as independent director on the board of Macquarie Private Capital Group, replacing Alex Varley, at the end of June. Macquarie Private Capital Group is an ASX listed private equity group that invests in a broad range of unlisted companies and assets, primarily through funds managed by specialist private equity managers. Meanwhile Hughes also confirmed Catholic Super was the fund which awarded L1 its first mandate, reported in last week’s I&TNews. Hughes said despite its good performance, Catholic Super was always trying to find ways of adding further alpha to its portfolios. “We were also mindful that, given how well our managers had performed it was probably time to lower some of our manager specific risk levels,” he said. “Our best performing manager over recent years has been Cooper Investors. We knew Rafi Lamm well from Coopers and we had an appreciation of the contribution he has made to our portfolio while he was there. So when Rafi decided to set up L1 with Mark Landau we decided to have a really good look at what they were putting together. We first talked to Rafi and Mark in early May but did not finally decide to back them until mid-July.” Hughes said good boutique managers had been the backbone of Catholic Super’s Australian share performance and their “research suggested that Rafi and Mark had a good chance of doing very well at L1”.
AustralianSuper’s appointment of a general manager, retirement to replace Shawn Blackmore, which follows ART's redeployment of Kathy Vincent to chief operating officer, shows that mega funds are back-pedalling on the strategy of having dedicated retirement C-suite executives. The role had been touted as the next big thing in super funds' organisational structures, but experts say what matters is there is senior accountability for decumulation.
Darcy SongDecember 4, 2024
