The $237 billion Aware Super says that it’s ready for more mergers after gobbling up TelstraSuper, but that it won’t be a “buyer of complexity” in an already rapidly consolidating super system.

Steve Travis, Aware Super group executive for member growth, says the merger process was carried out at a breakneck pace – nine months, start to finish – but that, in the end, TelstraSuper’s members only experienced an 11-day limited service period.

“That was an unbelievable sprint, and I think it probably spoke to both TelstraSuper’s commitment to it and our commitment to it,” Travis tells Investment Magazine.

Aware didn’t just take TelstraSuper’s $30 billion or so in assets; it also lifted out financial planners, a “big chunk” of the contact centre, and personnel with skills across relationship management, insurance, defined benefit arrangements and corporate super (Aware opted not to pick up the investment team).

But Aware won’t stop with TelstraSuper, Travis says, more mergers are on the cards for the $237 billion megafund.

“I think the industry will consolidate; the government has expressed a desire to have fewer funds with stronger financial backing, and that makes for a stronger industry. In that world, we think there’s benefits to our members to play at that consolidation, as well as offering benefits to other funds to leverage off our capabilities.

“We want to be intentional about that rather than just reacting to any fund that comes along and knocks on our door – have a clear approach, and think about where it will benefit our members. About a year ago we said we’re ready to grow after three or four years investing in our future technology set and administration capability, because during that time we really had the blinders on for growth.”

Still, there are some opportunities the fund won’t take because  it doesn’t want to be a “buyer of complexity”.

“I think there are some funds that will take on really complex arrangements that don’t make a lot of sense,” Travis says, adding that the fund worked with TelstraSuper during the merger to simplify its defined benefit arrangements.

“Other areas [of complexity] are where the employer gets into expressing process controls – for example, service levels around certain transactions. When you have to create specialised workflows for different clients, all of a sudden scaling that up becomes very challenging.

“The tension is that we have to say to ourselves, both now and over the longer term, does this benefit our current membership? And if it does, we think there’s an opportunity.”

Travis says that the fund also has strengthening organic growth prospects and that it is one of the only profit-to-member super funds currently reversing its competitive flow position.

“We’ve reversed our three-year trend, going from a billion in outflows three years ago to, financial year-to-date, $20 million just underwater. We can see the line. At the end of March we were actually slightly above – April has been down. We may get to zero or slightly above water this year, but from a billion out we are reversing the trend of competitive flows.”