The clear and present challenge of technology

Remember the Pony Express? It linked the American West, town by town, horse by horse. Well, the Pony Express went bust on 26 October 1861, just two days after the telegraph opened up U.S. communications from coast to coast. Speaking to a group of Australian superannuation representatives in New York last month, Brett King – … Read more

Woolworths is John Pearce’s biggest regret

John Pearce has taken the brave step of revealing the investments he got wrong over the last year in his role as chief investment of UniSuper. The fund has an overweight bet on many high yielding Australian shares and while this paid off for Telstra and ASX it has produced an 18 per cent loss … Read more

Rosemary Vilgan resigns

QSuper chief executive officer Rosemary Vilgan has announced she will resign from her role after 18 years at the helm. Vilgan, who will spend her last day in the office on October 23, has spent the past few years on an evangelical push to get QSuper members moved into investment cohorts reflective of their relative … Read more

IOOF head admits issues of misconduct were withheld from the regulator

IOOF’s chief executive Chris Kelaher has confirmed the company did not lodge ASIC breach reports for a number of issues, despite evidence of misconduct inside its research division. Kelaher fronted the Senate Economics References Committee in Macquarie Street, Sydney yesterday, facing stiff questioning about his knowledge of alleged misconduct within its research division. The Senate … Read more

AvSuper launches full in-house financial planning service

AvSuper has extended its financial personal advice service to provide a full in-house financial planning service to members. The $2 billion fund appointed three fully qualified and licensed financial planners last month to serve its 6,500 members in air services (including pilots, air traffic controllers and those working in the airside fire service). They are … Read more

AustralianSuper negotiates early access to life insurance benefits

AustralianSuper has negotiated with its insurer to allow members early access to life insurance benefits, in addition to their super balance, in cases where they have less than 24 months to live. The fund’s decision follows recent government changes to regulations, which enable individuals certified to have a terminal medical condition, by two medical practitioners, … Read more

Niche alpha – how Telstra Super manages private markets and hedge funds

Kate Misic, head of alternatives at Telstra Super, manages 7 per cent of the fund’s assets in private markets and hedge funds. She talks to Investment Magazine about her approach to each asset class. Telstra’s allocation to hedge funds, private equity and private debt eats up a large part of the $17 billion fund’s fee budget, but it is justified … Read more

Incentivising in-house investment teams

In-house investment teams are in the ascendancy in fund management. Scott Bunny and John Apthorp of recruitment firm B & K Consulting look into the future and ask if the rewards will satisfy these teams. The debate on in-house management has tended to focus on the costs of external managers and internal teams. This has … Read more

One year, not four, to prepare for super governance changes

Board’s will need to submit an approved and detailed transition plan to APRA by July 1, 2016 on how they intend to comply with the new, and as yet undefined, requirements for governance, including whether current directors can be considered independent. Many experienced people in superannuation will likely not be classed as independent leaving a … Read more

State Super Financial Services cautious about bondification of equities

State Super Financial Services (SSFS) is cautious about the bondification of equites as it can give an unintended bias to interest rate sensitivity. The term has been highlighted in CREATE – Research and Principal Global Investors’ annual global survey of 705 pension plans, sovereign wealth funds, asset managers, pension consultants and fund buyers, which predicts … Read more

Definition of ‘growth’ distorts performance tables

Funds are being accused of gaming the success of their MySuper products by understating the level of growth assets. Analysis by PwC of the strategic asset allocations for 30 funds in the SuperRatings SR 50 Balanced (60-76) index per cent survey has shown a wide variety of interpretation for growth assets. The implications are large. … Read more