TWU Super has dealt fresh global equities and Australian small caps mandates as part of an ongoing portfolio reconstruction aimed at further diversifying its investment exposure.
The $2.2 billion transport workers’ industry fund has dealt an $82 million mandate to the MFS global equities trust and assigned Australian small caps boutique, Adam Smith Asset Management, to invest $35 million. “MFS have a thorough bottom-up approach that is growth-oriented, and Adam Smith [Asset Management] was a stand-out,” Bill McMillin, TWU Super chief executive officer and fund secretary, said. McMillin said the new mandates were allocated as part of an ongoing portfolio redesign that began two years ago after a full review of the fund’s managers by Mercer Investment Consulting. The major outcome from the review was greater diversification across asset classes, McMillin said. “It’s increased the number of managers without changing the risk profile, with greater diversification across sub-sets of asset classes. It has almost doubled the number of managers we use.” Fine-tunings of the fund’s Australian equities and currency allocations are the remaining, unaddressed recommendations from the review.
The brunt of losses from the LA wildfires are expected to be borne by primary insurers and high-risk reinsurance programs, but super funds are nevertheless closely monitoring the possible impact of the fires on catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities exposures.
Simon HoyleJanuary 17, 2025
