With the top-performing Meat Industry Employees Superannuation Fund disappearing into CareSuper, Investment Magazine sits down with CIO Chris Artis to discuss the headwinds for small funds, the disappearance of superannuation generalists and the shape of the system to come.
In an environment where many traditional assets are wrestling with geopolitics, trade frictions and AI-driven capex, one asset class has quietly delivered consistent, double-digit returns untethered from interest rate shocks and equity market volatility: catastrophe bonds.
UniSuper CIO John Pearce says the $140 billion super fund remains fully invested through the ongoing correction in equity markets, despite risks stemming from trade wars, massive AI capex and the spectre of rising inflation.
The prudential regulator’s first system-wide stress test found that while super funds are an “important stabiliser” of the financial system, they can also transmit and amplify shocks due to their growing size and links to other institutions.
Australia’s super funds are now operating in a more volatile world. That means they need to be prepared for everything from major liquidity events to hot wars, and understand how their members will behave too.
Super funds need to make it as easy as possible for disengaged members to move into an acceptable – even if not optimal – retirement solution. This raises the question of what “default” might mean in a retirement context, as well as which version the industry may be angling for.
When a member retires, their worldview can shift significantly as they realise they may have to rely on their super fund for income that lasts for the rest of their lives. Members are naturally sceptical of promises and guarantees which is why transparency and trust are critical.
Australia’s sovereign wealth fund says that “resilience” is vital for navigating a world defined by more conflict, more intervention and more inflation. But building it into portfolios is no small task.
With their international asset exposures now sitting at 50 per cent, super funds are looking beyond the US for returns even as they expect the AI and digitalisation thematic to keep powering markets.
Legacy admin systems were built for a steady-state world where members contributed steadily for decades and rarely touched anything. But in a world that will include payday super and a growing number of highly demanding retirees, the challenges facing funds and their administrators are mounting. It requires a change in mindset from minimising costs to maximising service.
The Super Members Council wants anti-hawking laws expanded to prevent a repeat of the $1.2 billion collapse of the Shield and First Guardian master funds, warning that serious consumer risks arise when members are pushed to move their super out of the “mainstream” system.
In the first episode of the new Retirement Magazine Pension Policy Series podcast, Opperman warns that Australia has millions of people “coming over the hill” into retirement with no plan to manage it. The Retirement Income Covenant alone is not enough – he says a strategy without implementation is meaningless, and that there is “a problem on advice and guidance”.
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Investment Magazine provides in-depth, monthly analysis of trends and developments for all the businesses in which superannuation funds engage‚ including asset allocation, investment manager selection, custody and fund accounting, member administration, group insurance and compliance.
We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of this land upon which Conexus Financial sits, the Cadigal of the Eora Nation. We recognise their continuing connection and unique cultural and spiritual relationships to the land, waters and community. We pay our deepest respects to them and their culture, and to Elders both past and present.
