Bill Watson is stepping down from as CEO of First Super after 13 years to join the $7 billion construction industry fund BUSSQ in the CIO position vacated by Peter Laity in December. Watson will move to Queensland to take up the role.

“It’s a great opportunity to work for a great fund, and it suits me personally,”  Watson told Investment Magazine. “There have been some [portfolio construction] changes recently and it will be my job to implement them.”

Watson’s role at First Super encompassed investments, and he has also presided over mergers and acquisitions at Adsteam Marine and investments at Statewide Super. He said that making the switch from First to BUSSQ will be helped by the fact that both funds have similar, blue collar member base; the only difference, to Watson’s mind, is that BUSSQ’s membership hails from the construction sector while First draws its membership from manufacturing.

Like First, BUSSQ has “enjoyed some pretty good inflows” over the last few years and sustained membership growth, with The Conexus Institute’s 2025 State of Super report finding that it was one of a small handful of funds with low scale but above-system net inflows.

“The outlook is very positive. It’s the Queensland building and construction fund and has great support from its employers and members. I think we’re through most of the angst about small funds and big funds; what we’ve seen recently is that consolidation hasn’t necessarily benefited members in terms of service – getting the phone answered, getting claims paid – and for large funds the opportunities for alpha are diminishing.”

“My overriding concern has always been that megafunds creates systemic risk, and we’ve seen concerns from regulators about systemic risk, market concentration, declines in member servicing.”

Watson’s near 13-year tenure at First makes him one of the longest-serving super fund CEOs (David Elia is currently the front runner, taking the top job at Hostplus in 2003) and he expects that the fund will continue to go it alone.

“Why would it give up really good service and claims handling to merge into another fund? It does an exceptional job with member service, and that’s independently benchmarked,” he said.

“I’m proud of the fact that the fund is in a strong, sustainable position. It’s had membership growth, and our long-term result as a fund that has invested less aggressively is around eight per cent. We’ve made money for members – that’s what I’m most proud of.”

Like First Super, BUSSQ is a Frontier Advisors full service client – meaning Frontier advises it on strategy, undertakes stress testing and manager reviews, and makes recommendations on manager appointments. It would likely fall into the AUM range of funds being targeted by Frontier for its new outsourced investment offering, following the creation of which First Super upped its stake in the business.

But Watson said that what happened with what Frontier has dubbed its “ICIO” solution was now a matter for CEO Andrew Polson and that, after he gets his feet under the desk, he would be focusing on making sure BUSSQ members got returns. 

“A super fund’s job is really simple; we get the money, invest it, and give the members back more money. It’s about continuing that process of making money for members.”