The news that AustralianSuper CIO Mark Delaney would step down in 2026 signaled the end of an era for the super sector. Delaney has been longer-tenured than any other executive of the fund and will rack up a total of 25 years in the top investment job by the time he leaves 50 Lonsdale Street for the last time on June 30. In a release, AustralianSuper CEO Paul Schroder credited Delaney with presiding over “around half” of the growth in the fund’s assets to $400 billion since 2006 – so about $190 billion. Not bad.  
 
That super’s accumulator–in–chief is stepping down at the very moment when the system shifts to a decumulation mindset has a dramatic irony. And just like the murmuring from some quarters that Delany hung around too long, there is the feeling – backed by significant evidence – that super’s shift to thinking about how to pay members the money they made for them has been somewhat delayed.  
 
Investment Magazine’s most-read stories were often about breakdowns in admin and member services: HESTA’s long limited service period, which has now seen it (perhaps unfairly) rapped over the knuckles by APRA; the co-ordinated credential stuffing attack that saw scammers make off with millions in super savings; the devastating failures in Cbus’ claims handling process; the fact that the industry’s top executives saw their pay rise even as the problems grew and grew. Many of those stories really began long before they broke, with protracted underinvestment in core systems both inside and outside funds, and will likely continue into the future as they scramble to lift their game.  
 
Though it wasn’t all bad news. 2025 might in the future be thought of as the year that super funds really took the world stage, with delegations drawn from across the sector jetting off to London and New York to extol the benefits of Australia’s mandatory retirement savings scheme – and its investments in everything from renewable energy to bridges and toll roads across Europe and North America. With super’s global footprint growing every day – around half of new contributions at many funds now find their way overseas – it’s likely that the next few years will see their international influence keep growing. In recognition of the fact that its future lies offshore, could AustralianSuper’s next CIO come from abroad? We’ll soon see.   
 
There was also significant interest in (what must surely be) the tail-end of the consolidation trend, with the sector’s eyes fixed on TelstraSuper’s ongoing merger process, which saw it hang up on Equip in puzzling circumstances – a communications breakdown, perhaps? – and dial–in Aware Super instead.  
 
But truly, the biggest story of the year fell outside Investment Magazine’s core audience, with the investment platforms that have been hoovering up members from profit-to-member funds shaken by the collapse of Shield and First Guardian. Investment Magazine sister publication Professional Planner has done a fantastic job of covering it, but it’s likely that the collapse could see the smouldering embers of the super wars re-ignite and burn brightly into 2026.  
 
With consumer confidence in the system vital to its success, the Investment Magazine team hopes that won’t be the case. As our managing director and founder, Colin Tate AM, wrote in a recent op-ed, Netwealth’s decision to make its customers whole following the collapse “offers an opportunity for the heat in the industry to subside over the holiday period and to avoid it descending into another partisan conflict”. Hopefully, super’s executives will return from the break with their minds focused on delivering value to their members in every form.  
 
Investment Magazine will return in 2026 with its first bulletin on Wednesday, 7 January. Merry Christmas, and a happy new year.

Investment Magazine’s top 10 stories of 2025
10. What MUFG’s bid for Grow says about the state of super admin 
9. APRA savages Cbus in court-enforceable undertaking, investigates possible SIS breaches
8. Meet the 10 members of the million-dollar CIO club
7. Aware’s TelstraSuper takeover is a high stakes game for both funds
6. CEO pay rose as super woes bubbled away 
5. RBA tells super funds not to expect bail-out amid liquidity stress
4. TelstraSuper hangs up on Equip as merger benefits ‘not achievable’
3. The ghosts of super’s original admin sin have come back to haunt it 
2. Aware Super retirement lead heads to AustralianSuper 
1. HESTA silence on service outage leaves more questions than answers