Bucking the trend of super funds hunting for assets in Europe and the Americas, the $35 billion Brighter Super has committed to investing more in Queensland, drawn by its home state’s strong economic tailwinds and the chance to support the communities its members live and work in.

“85 per cent of our funds under management is owned by Queenslanders, and if you think about the demographic of our members…they are community-minded local government employees, they are community-minded energy industry employees – they’re all the people who get out there and help support Queensland communities and the Queensland economy,” says Brighter chief executive officer Kate Farrar.

“So when we thought about that, we though that Queensland is so central to Brighter Super’s purpose that it made sense for us to specifically look in Queensland for assets that support the Queensland economy and Queensland communities.”

Farrar says that, as a result, some “incredible opportunities” have appeared on its radar that might otherwise not have if the fund looked further afield. So far, the fund has announced it will tip $50 million into local startups through one of QIC’s venture capital funds, $75 million into Queensland farmland and agribusiness with Riparian Capital Partners and $100 million into local real estate with Barings.

“We had about a billion dollars invested in Queensland [already],” Farrar says.

“Some of those were legacies of work previously done, often with local government assets but also government assets generally. Some of those came to us as part of diversified portfolios from existing institutional managers. So, it was a 50 per cent uplift on the amount that we already had invested, and we think that represents a genuine and solid commitment to Queensland but also a fantastic capitalisation on opportunities for our member returns as well.”

An underrated aspect of investing closer to home is the ability to “go and actually have a look” at assets, talk to their managers and see how they’re working, Farrar says.

“I went to visit one of them last week; it’s called SwarmFarm, and they do autonomous agriculture. Brilliant asset. They’re exporting to the US. It was wonderful to be able to go and talk to that team. And we might not have looked at that if we hadn’t intentionally said that we wanted to back activity in Queensland.”  

But lest the fund be accused of parochialism, it still invests plenty abroad.

“Our funds are still diversified internationally,” Farrar says. 

“We do still have holdings offshore. [And] we did look at concentration risk and the sizing was definitely considered. As the fund gets bigger, we’ll obviously have a look at that concentration risk and how the assets are performing, and if we genuinely have identified an opportunity for outperformance because of access to privileged assets or our proximity to assets then we’ll have consider what [the right size is].”

Brighter Super is continuing to work on acquiring more assets, having committed just under half of the $500 million it’s put aside for the strategy. And with the Olympics set to be held in Brisbane in 2032, Farrar expects there’ll be more opportunities to invest in the lead-up.

“We’re definitely looking at Olympics assets and opportunities; there’s seven years to go and there are very, very active conversations,” she says. “The same thing goes for energy transition assets – there’s a lot of opportunity.

“I don’t necessarily see that this is going to be a forever ‘set and forget’ set of assets either, you know, we do want to maintain an exposure. I think this is going to be an ongoing commitment.”