FuturePlus to expand the role of new CIO

To replace its exited chief investment officer, FuturePlus will search for a general manager of investments, a role chief executive Richard Powis believes will expand the superannuation service provider’s analytical reach.

“The ability to look at investment opportunities and risks from a variety of ways is important,” Powis said, and had led the business to extend the CIO role to incorporate more intensive risk analysis procedures and to canvas ‘outlier’ threats to performance. “We’re going to increase our analytical capabilities, to map more of the ‘what-ifs’ than we did in the past…Risk-return analysis has to be more thorough. “A lot of variables need to be explored.” This would probably require FuturePlus to increase the number of analysts in its investment advisory business beyond its current headcount of three. Powis said the FuturePlus board had approved the new-look CIO position, and that it would be advertised to the market in coming weeks. Brad Storey has been acting CIO since Terry Newson left in September 2007 to found Maritime and Mining Investments Group with the backing of Maritime Super and Auscoal – an arrangement that dissolved last month. The owners of FuturePlus – the $6.1 billion NSW Local Government Superannuation Scheme (LGSS) and the $3 billion Energy Industries Superannuation Scheme (EISS) – rely on investment advice from FuturePlus to different extents, Powis said. While LGSS had stated that it requires a permanent in-house investment resource and is searching for its first CIO, EISS is not. In addition, LGSS had not sold out of its direct property holdings like EISS has, and it factors sustainability research into its investment analysis, according to Peter Lambert, LGSS chief executive. Powis joined FuturePlus in February after working for 15 years in the electricity supply industry, most recently as the chief executive officer of Integral Energy. Prior to his current appointment, he was on the EISS board.