It’s a shortage of projects, not capital, that’s impairing Australian infrastructure, according to AustralianSuper chair Heather Ridout. Speaking at the Australian Centre for Financial Studies’ Funding Australia’s Future Forum, she said industry superannuation funds are best placed to invest in Australia’s infrastructure. “Industry funds are ideal vehicles because we have a relatively more passive investor … Read more
Cheap, effective member segmentation starts with an Excel spreadsheet, according to Jane Perry, chief executive of Qantas Super, who has recently used it to initiate targeted communications. The fund’s return on investment has been a 23 per cent response rate to a targeted mail shot aimed at gaining email and mobile phone numbers from members … Read more
Harwood Superannuation Fund has made an in-principle decision to transfer its $1.4-billion fund into another under successor-fund provisions. The fund is the default for Australian employees of CSR Limited, Holcim (Australia) and Wilmar Sugar. The decision to transfer the fund’s accumulation-based benefits was made following discussions with the employer members, which are no longer related … Read more
Robyn Petrou, chief executive of Energy Super, was awarded superannuation fund executive of the year at the Fund Executives Association Limited (FEAL) National Conference in Melbourne last week. Petrou was recognised for succeeding in the male-dominated world of the energy industry, of which she has won admiration, and for the depth of her strategic thinking. Praised for … Read more
General secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, Sharan Burrow, spoke to the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Sydney, Australia on Thursday August 1 about the need for an effective G20 in a precarious world. Ladies and Gentlemen, The global economy is no more stable today than it was six years ago, and the … Read more
Mason, a partner in superannuation at Deloitte, began his career as a solicitor, but his consultancy work in superannuation has spanned decades, with experience at Prudential and 24 years at Mercer. He spoke to AMAL AWAD about super and why he loves consulting. How did you land in superannuation consulting? Pure chance. I trained to be a solicitor … Read more
Responsible investment is dominated by political correctness and is being pushed through by super funds with too little debate, according to Jack Gray, adjunct professor of finance at the Paul Woolley Centre for Capital Markets Dysfunctionality at the University of Technology Sydney. Talking to the annual Fund Executive Association Limited National Conference in Melbourne, Gray … Read more
Divesting from tobacco has had a negligible impact on returns, the Fund Executives Association Limited annual conference heard in a speech from a leading anti-smoking campaigner. Dr Bronwyn King, radiation oncologist at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and Epworth Healthcare, said the analysis carried out by some of the 10 large superannuation funds that had … Read more
Tony Lally has resigned from his position as chief executive of Sunsuper, citing the desire to pursue non-executive director roles following six years at the helm. He told Investment Magazine that he achieved everything he’d set out to. “When I joined it was very much a run-of-the-mill industry fund, but the work I’ve done over … Read more
Institutional investors’ insatiable appetite for infrastructure assets is being curbed by limited deal flow, according to Paul Foster, head of infrastructure for Australia and New Zealand at AMP Capital. Foster, who was a speaker at the recent Financial Services Council’s conference, described Australian superannuation funds as “rightfully agnostic” when it came to domestic versus offshore … Read more
Technological advances in scaled advice in the US mean investment plans are being finalised in as little as three days, unlike the six to eight weeks common in Australia, according to Vanguard. Growing use of paperless procedures, programs that automatically calculate wealth management plans and video conferencing have all sped up the process. Karin Risi, … Read more
A $2.34-billion fund with only three investment professionals should be run with a strict focus on maximising where you can make a difference and keeping it simple and standard where you cannot. This means deriving most returns from smart asset allocation rather than stock or manager selection, and it means placing a large slug of … 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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