Michael Clancy has been appointed chief investment officer of Rest Super, following 10 years at the head of Qantas Super. The corporate fund merged into Australian Retirement Trust in a successor fund transfer in March.
“[Clancy] has extensive experience leading high-performing teams and fostering a culture of trust, transparency and accountability, while successfully navigating the evolving superannuation landscape and delivering competitive member outcomes,” said Rest chief executive officer Vicki Doyle.
With his long tenure as CEO at Qantas Super and string of non-executive director roles, Clancy seems an outside choice for the CIO position, which has been shared in an interim capacity by Kiran Singh, Rest’s head of listed assets; and Simon Esposito, the deputy CIO under Andrew Lill, following Lill’s departure late last year.
Clancy’s last CIO role was at MLC during the Global Financial Crisis, but one industry source called the appointment “strong and credible” and said that, owing to Qantas Super’s relatively small size (about $9 billion), Clancy worked fairly hands-on across the business, from admin and member services to investments, and that his experience at MLC gave him a “strong investment background”.
“He will deeply understand the broader issues that Vicki [Doyle] and the team are facing in a holistic sense,” the source said.
Hired to create a successful and capable investments function – Rest was previously highly reliant on the advice of its asset consultant, JANA – Lill is said to have left the fund in good stead, though sources say that it now needs a CIO with more of a management bent.
Part of the reason for that is because of the internalisation process that saw the Melbourne-based Superannuation Investment Management (SIM) – Rest’s wholly-owned subsidiary fund manager – brought in-house and combined with the Sydney-based team that handled asset allocation, implementation and manager selection. Rest also picked up SIM’s London office in the process. During Lill’s tenure, the fund also committed to the build-out of an internal active equities team.
“We aspire to grow our membership and funds under management to deliver even more for members over the next 10 years,” Doyle said.
“Michael is a seasoned investment leader with the expertise to steer our more than 140-strong investment team towards these ambitions. Michael is keenly aware of the imperative to deliver strong investment returns to members and he has a personal passion for super funds doing all they can to help members build confidence in their financial futures.”
