Catholic Superannuation and Retirement Fund (CSRF) has increased its allocation to emerging market equities from 3 to 6 percent, reducing some of its weighting in Australian equities.

CSRF’s CEO Greg Cantor said: “We feel that while Australian equities still have exposure to China and India with resources, being such a small market, there are other opportunities out there which emerging markets will give.” With $3.5 billion under management, the international equities arm of CSRF represents around $1 billion, making this extension with emerging markets manager Lazard Asset Management worth $30 million. In September CSFR plans to review its defensive assets, looking at a range of conservative options beyond its current “vanilla” portfolio of corporate and sovereign debt. “Maybe we’ll reduce our exposure to fixed interest; we’ll be looking at everything from retail property to hedge funds,” Cantor said.