Cbus chief executive, David Atkin, will explain his fund’s new investment strategy, which saw the CIO role split in two, at the Fidicuary Investors Symposium in Victoria later this month.

The 18-month Cbus review created a new role – known as executive manager, investment strategy – which will be taken up by former Frontier Advisors’ partner, Kristian Fok, who also worked with the fund on the review process.

The $20-billion fund will now take an active approach to equity allocations and make investments in new assets classes, with a renewed focus on members rather than competitors and peer risk. The goal is to reduce the fund’s exposure to sharemarket volatility and deliver smooth returns over the medium term.

Cbus will no longer benchmark its returns against other funds over periods up to five years, with the measurement period now changed to 10 years to comply with the MySuper requirements.

Other changes at Cbus are a broadening of the asset allocation into areas such as credit asset class, which includes corporate and high-yield debt instruments. The fund is also reportedly looking at investing in the run-off in general insurance.

The Conexus Financial Fiduciary Investors Symposium will be held on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula from November 25 to 27.