Accomplished financial services journalist Lachlan Maddock has been appointed editor of Investment Magazine as the publication positions to continue covering Australia’s superannuation funds and institutional asset owners as they contend with major investment and organisational challenges and expand their global influence.
Robin Khuda, founder and chief executive of AirTrunk, has been announced as a speaker at the Investment Magazine Fiduciary Investors Symposium in Healesville, taking institutional asset owners behind the $24 billion acquisition of the storied Australian data centre operator by Blackstone and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. The blockbuster deal is a sign of how the market narrative around AI is shifting from hyped public markets to private and fiduciary ownership.
Brighter Super CIO Mark Rider is stepping down, leaving behind a fund very different to the one he joined, and one that’s getting ready for the next chapter of the superannuation story: retirement.
Asset owners like the Future Fund continue to weigh up the shifting risk-return attributes of the booming data centre sector including deal structures, refinancing, energy requirements, and the future of AI.
Some funds experiencing weaker growth and operational inefficiency “often do not appear to be in a position” to improve their outlook, according to the prudential regulator. While specific funds weren’t named and shamed, APRA put a handful on notice to provide clear evidence they’ll lift their game.
Vanguard Australia managing director Daniel Shrimski has warned against watering down the Your Future Your Super performance test but thinks that changes to its benchmarks could encourage investment in “emerging asset classes”.
ASIC expressed reservations about changing RG97 to provide relief from stamp duty disclosure obligations prior to committing to a review, according to internal documents released to Investment Magazine under freedom of information laws. The corporate regulator also told Treasurer Jim Chalmers it will also reduce its data collection efforts and streamline the Financial Accountability Regime to make it less “burdensome”.
The size of the current infrastructure investment gap and the speed at which it is widening mean there is both a desire and a need for more public-private partnerships to unlock funding. Investors say that collaboration with local governments and raising public awareness of private investment benefits are crucial.
CIOs are now less likely to make individual investment decisions than manage the guardrails designed to stop them from going bad. But they must also now consider how politics can shape them too.
Macquarie’s decision to compensate its superannuation customers who lost money in the collapse of the Shield managed investment scheme looks good, but – having been caught red-handed – it really had no choice. And the way the compensation is structured will ultimately cost it a fraction of the headline figure.
Macquarie will purchase the holdings of Shield clients on its superannuation platform, returning millions of dollars to investors, and will aim to claw back what it can from liquidators but foot the remainder of the compensation bill itself. But whether other trustees will be as proactive as Macquarie remains to be seen, with Equity Trustees seemingly unlikely to budge on its position that it fulfilled its fiduciary duties.
ASIC has lifted the interim stop order on La Trobe’s Australian Credit Fund, but is still in discussions with the manager about its US Private Credit product. Meanwhile, influential asset consultant Frontier Advisors has called out poor liquidity management in the sector.
The investment intelligence behind Australia’s largest asset owners and their teams
In-depth interviews with leaders, experts and visionaries in the institutional investment community
Updates on the latest industry policy developments and regulation
The challenges and innovations of custody, technology and operational due diligence
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.
