Legalsuper has been able to negotiate a three year premium freeze on group insurance with OnePath owing to the low risk profile of its members. It has also gained unlimited death cover, a rise in TPD cover from $2 million to $3 million, a doubling in increased terminal illness benefit to $2 million and increase … Read more
Those helping super funds to manage their investment data report an industry groaning under the weight of more compliance than it has ever faced before. Providers say the cost of increased workloads and systems build will be passed back to members, while opportunity costs are being incurred from the holding up of innovation. DST Global … Read more
Large to medium sized funds are increasingly ordering tailored infrastructure portfolios that can be skewed for characteristics such as growth, inflation protection and liquidity. The trend, which is being seen by AMP Capital, is also being encouraged by APRA regulation which calls on trustees to demonstrate they have chosen investments to meet their specific risk … Read more
Peeyush Gupta wants to forge strategic referral relationships with industry and corporate super funds, hire more advisers, open new offices, and see it lead the debate on post-retirement in Australia. The group has also commenced a research project on managing longevity risk. According to Gupta, the high and rising cost of providing ongoing personal advice … Read more
Many will quickly tell you there is greater return to be made from smart asset allocation than from manager selection, but few investors will jump to expand on this theory the way the Future Fund does. For David Neal, chief investment officer of the fund, strategic portfolio construction is typically done at too high a … Read more
Difficulties meeting the three day turn around for member transfers, a statutory obligation from January 1, 2014, has brought renewed concern at the practicality of super funds coping with regulation. Graeme Arnott, chief operating officer at First State Super, said that his fund and much of the industry were under “immense pressure” to carry out … Read more
Sunsuper is claiming a big growth in small employer clients from searches carried out on Google with the term ‘pay super simple’. The fund appears as the second highest search result for this term, the ranking for which is determined by the popularity of the link and the closeness of the search term to the … Read more
The use of ETFs in Australia has grown almost 50 per cent since the beginning of 2013 reaching just shy of $10bn in funds under management as at the end of December. While in the early years growth was driven by retail investors, recent activity suggests ETF uptake by institutional investors is on the … Read more
The chief investment officer behind one of the best performing funds of 2013 says comparisons of performance figures will be less relevant for members in 2014. Janice Sengupta of the Aon Master Trust has seen her fund’s Balanced Growth Active option ranked first in recent surveys by Chant West and SuperRatings. For the year to … Read more
Challenger is to delay the launch of its deferred lifetime annuity (DLA), after the government said it wanted a review of all post-retirement products before awarding them tax breaks. Earlier this year the Labor government had announced that the income from DLAs would receive a concessional tax break from July 1, 2014. Challenger had planned … Read more
SuperFriend has joined forces with Australia’s seven largest insurers to find ways of reducing the incidence of mental illness among insurance claimants. The charity created by industry superannuation funds is currently helping to scope a project to kick off early next year that will have findings by the end of 2014. The imperative for the … Read more
Despite being a sector which has always been required to maintain data on its members (i.e. customers), superannuation funds have been slow to embrace data analytics. Part of the reason for this is that administration systems designed primarily to record basic member data have typically not been flexible enough to readily provide more valuable information … Read more
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In-depth interviews with leaders, experts and visionaries in the institutional investment community
Updates on the latest industry policy developments and regulation
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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.
