Link Group has acquired PSI Superannuation Management in a private transaction that makes Nationwide Superannuation Fund a new client of its administration business, Australian Administration Services (AAS).
The eight shareholders in PSI, which are based in New South Wales’ Hunter region and have owned the superannuation administrator since 1987, sold instead of improving the business through internet functionality and a so-called clearinghouse to better process super contributions.
“There is a lot of change in the industry and a lot of developments that we would have had to implement,” says Wayne Lowe, chief executive of Newcastle-based PSI. “AAS offers these already or are in the process of delivering them.”
Link operates investment-services businesses in markets including the United Kingdom, Europe, Africa, Canada, India and Australasia.
Super scale
PSI has been Nationwide’s administrator since the fund’s 1987 inception. The fund, which now manages about $440 million from about 80,000 members, extended its contract with PSI by two years to 2017 following the AAS acquisition, says fund secretary Ian Morante.
This should allow AAS to adapt to new prudential standards and regulations including SuperStream and the auto-consolidation of people’s small, inactive superannuation balances with their larger accounts.
The size and resources of AAS can potentially benefit Nationwide in the coming years, Morante says.
“In the longer term we’re hoping for cost savings, but at the moment it’s business as usual.”
A smaller unit of PSI that provides financial planning and administration services to self-managed superannuation funds was not bought by Link, according to Morante.
