Media Super chief executive Graeme Russell has snapped up Michael McQueen as the fund’s new chief investment officer, replacing Norman Zhang who is leaving to join legalsuper in a similar role.
McQueen joined the $5.5 billion fund this week after leaving LUCRF Super in December, following a restructure of the $7 billion fund’s investment model. He joined LUCRF in July 2018 as head of investment strategy from Kinetic Super before it merged with Sunsuper. Zhang is due to start his new role in March after leaving Media Super the same month.
The appointments are the latest in a flurry of recent announcements across the industry, as super funds including LUCRF, Rest Super and legalsuper look to shake up their investment operations in 2020.
LUCRF is hiring a new deputy CIO and an investment manager after a review found that the fund should have a smaller and more senior, generalist investment team rather than dedicated sector analysts and an asset allocation role. CIO Leigh Gavin announced in an internal memo that McQueen, along with Michael Chien, senior analyst of real assets and private markets and Chris Lye, senior analyst of listed equities had left the fund, while analyst Asha Rahman moved to another team.
Rest is yet to name its new investment chief after announcing a restructure in August. George Zielinksi, CIO of its investment arm, is acting as interim CIO while it searches for a candidate. Rest’s general manager of investments, Brendan Casey, left the fund in November.
At legalsuper, Zhang who oversaw Media Super’s investments for just over two years, is replacing Edward Smith who left the $4.3 billion fund in September and popped up last week as TWUSUPER’s new investment chief. Andrew Killen is due to retire from the $6 billion fund later this year.
legalsuper has also recently restructured its investment approach and has converted all Australian share investments from pooled funds to direct mandates. It allocated $280 million to Magellan, Wellington and BlueBay Asset Management and increased its allocation to alternative assets.
