MLC is in the early stages of consolidating the patchwork of group insurance arrangements it inherited during years of mergers and acquisitions by its parent company Insignia Financial and its predecessors. MLC Super chief executive Dave Woodall wants insurers pitching for the business to think well beyond price.
The CoreData/Conexus Financial Best Possible Retirement research reveals a gap in member satisfaction between small funds and large funds, and between industry funds and retail funds. But the message for all funds is clear: members want and need more support not only as they move into retirement, but also after they’re in it.
Members cannot be out of sight, out of mind for funds after they’ve retired. The CoreData/Conexus Financial Best Possible Retirement research shows that members who move into retirement without the benefit of information, advice and guidance feel lost, and in dire need of ongoing fund support services.
NSW Treasury Corporation chief investment officer Stewart Brentnall will retire from full-time employment within the next 12 months, ending a tenure of almost a decade in which he built and embedded the total portfolio approach across the roughly $125 billion the fund manages on behalf of the NSW Government.
The demand for AI driving data centre construction might be “insatiable”, but the chief investment officer of the $166 billion UniSuper thinks that investors could be taking on technology debt and misreading the regulatory tea leaves as they rush to buy digital infrastructure.
Rest has acquired a one-third stake in Melbourne’s Moorabbin Airport, extending the $112 billion profit-to-member fund’s push into Australian industrial property.
A growing super system that is increasing in complexity and systemic importance warrants a better performance assessment framework. But the recent consultation on the YFYS performance test only focuses on modifying the existing test without changing its essential nature.
The $80 billion Mercer Super has delivered a fourth consecutive year of double-digit returns to most members of its SmartPath lifecycle product. Global equities did a lot of heavy lifting, but chief investment officer Graeme Miller tells Investment Magazine that the fund is now looking further afield for returns.
New research from CoreData and Conexus Financial finds retirement satisfaction with super funds recorded its sharpest plunge on record this year, and it’s not only members approaching retirement who feel let down. The Best Possible Retirement study shows that pre-retirees’ expectations of how much they’ll need to be comfortable has leapt, and members already well into retirement also feel abandoned.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers has appointed APRA insider Therese McCarthy Hockey and former Labor Assistant Treasurer David Bradbury to the prudential regulator to replace Margaret Cole, citing “increasing scale and complexity in the financial system”. But Bradbury’s appointment has sparked swift backlash from the Liberal Party.
Both APRA and ASIC have told super funds they need to adopt a greater risk appetite and be more innovative in how they fulfil their obligations under the Retirement Income Covenant. In this episode of the Pension Policy Podcast, MLC’s director of customer innovation Ashton Jones tells Retirement Magazine editor Simon Hoyle that his definition of “innovation” … Read more
Colonial First State chief investment officer Jonathan Armitage says a shift away from reliance on US mega-cap tech stocks is reshaping portfolio resilience, with emerging markets, private debt and catastrophe bonds helping to drive returns across the portfolio.
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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.
