AIST’s flagship event, the Conference of Major Super Funds (CMSF) is the premier idea-sharing and networking event for Australia’s $600 billion not-for-profit superannuation sector, attracting over 1100 delegates including trustees, CEO’s, senior executives and fund staff. Day three newsletter – March 26, 2014 (PDF) Day two newsletter – March 25, 2014 (PDF) Day one newsletter … Read more
An abundance of liquidity is driving the price of infrastructure and core property to levels where super funds are exploring tactical sell-offs. Some clients of Frontier Advisors are contemplating such moves after receiving research that global investors with lower return targets are prepared to pay more for these assets. The research carried out by Ashley … Read more
Australian investors are looking to environmental, social and governance (ESG) screenings of sovereign bonds as a better means of understanding an asset class distorted by quantitative easing. Investors such as HOSTPLUS and Vicsuper have already gone on record to state their desire to either cut back on the asset class or to seek alternative indices, … Read more
Size isn’t everything when it comes to delivering the best service to members, believes Naomi Edwards, chair of the $2.1 billion Tasplan fund. “We don’t accept that the sweet spot for super funds is over $10 billion,” she says. “We think that you can run super funds well for less than that if you’ve got … Read more
This article contains the views of AMP, Mercer, ASIC, Frontier Advisors and Michael Drew professor of finance at Griffith Business School on the subject of target date funds. Three to four million Australians are about to embark on a very exciting experiment. They are to choose a date when they envisage finishing work and then … Read more
The first stage in the potential merger of all three prominent Tasmanian based superannuation funds drew a step closer after Quadrant and Tasplan agreed merger talks. The two funds are to enter into a Heads of Agreement to investigate whether a merger would create an improved provision of superannuation services to the members and employers … Read more
State Super is to gain the economies of scale of sharing a common administration platform, due diligence, manager appointments and reporting with TCorp and the Safety, Return to Work and Support Division. The NSW treasurer and the minister for finance and services have announced the merger of activities to gain greater cost efficiencies for each … Read more
CBUS has gained a 97 per cent approval rate from members for statements which confront them with an estimate of their income in retirement in today’s dollar value. The building industry fund conducted the exercise with 20,000 members to raise awareness that taking the lump sum was not the only option on retiring. Since the … Read more
Sunsuper is expanding its investment team to help it take greater advantage of investment opportunities. The fund, which runs $28 billion in assets, is increasingly using its size to negotiate exclusive partnership deals with fund managers to purchase property, loans, infrastructure and private companies. Currently around 29 per cent of the fund is invested in … Read more
The most significant suite of changes to privacy law in over twenty years take effect on 12 March 2014. In order to comply trustees must have a privacy complaints process and a new type of privacy policy. Most importantly they must control how the personal information they collect is stored, accessed and used, or risk … Read more
The culture of performance and fee comparison that the MySuper product dashboard will bring about in the coming years, poses a grand opportunity for funds to advertise their relative successes. The Australian Securities and Investment Commission is closely watching for any misleading product comparisons, it would prefer if funds did not emphasise short term performance … Read more
The cost of Stronger Super compliance and product development has led Media Super to cut the role of chief investment officer. Jon Glass left the fund on Monday and the responsibility for the $3.8 billion investment portfolio will be assumed by chief executive Graeme Russell, who in his time at First Super also acted as … Read more
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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.
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