Industry funds should collaborate with peer funds in and outside Australia because “It satisfies the what’s-in-it-for-me test,” Sicilia said. Together funds can influence policy, bargain for advantageous terms with fund managers and in co-investment deals, and share tax, legal and due diligence costs.

“We can set investor-friendly term sheets. When we’re faced with a deal, we can mark up the term sheet and say thank you very much, we’ll take the asset and these are the terms.”

In late 2010, Frontier and JANA Investment Advisors, a National Australia Bank-owned consultancy that helps steer $194 billion in assets, jointly called for fund managers to be paid a cost-recovery base fee and a large performance fee so they are better incentivised to beat their benchmarks.

“The next step is for Australian funds to get together and say that this sharing of the alpha is disproportionate. We want to reset the terms going forward.”