Future Fund keeps a level head amid geopolitical turmoil

The $223 billion Future Fund intends to keep its eyes wide open amid global geopolitical tensions and refrain from over or underestimating their impact on financial markets. In its latest position paper, the fund said seeking “true diversifiers” in portfolios has never been more important as “free lunch” like geographic diversification is no longer as effective.

‘An implausible planning scenario’: Inside the UniSuper outage

In May this year, UniSuper’s member services system was taken down by the failure of a key service provider. For a week, more than 647,000 members with more than $135 billion invested in the fund could not access their accounts. Investment Magazine goes behind the scenes of this unprecedented crisis with UniSuper CEO Peter Chun to examine the causes, the remedies and the lessons learned.

Active Super greenwashing case shows ASIC’s focus on details in ESG claims

Active Super’s latest run-in with ASIC over greenwashing demonstrates that the regulator is expecting trustees to “do what they say, and say what they do” when it comes to ESG claims, legal experts said, and to think twice before making sweeping statements that they can’t necessarily fulfill.

Swan reflects on ‘breathtaking’ super achievement as Cbus turns 40

In a discussion with Conexus Financial editor-in-chief Aleks Vickovich, current Cbus chair and former federal Treasurer Wayne Swan reflects on four decades of Cbus, his own role in establishing a system of retirement saving that is about to hit $4 trillion and is the envy of most other developed countries, and the role of superannuation in Australian society more broadly.

Geopolitics not a place for super funds to gain an edge

While geopolitical tensions might bring downside risks and investors spend considerable time formulating portfolio protection against this issue, two of Australia’s largest super funds, HESTA and ART, have made it clear that it’s not an area in which they are looking to gain an edge.

Small funds, platforms RSEs need to lift valuation game: APRA

APRA has told smaller super funds (with asset of less than $25 billion) and platform RSE licensees to address weaknesses in their unlisted asset valuation processes, following an industry self-assessment survey that identified some deficiencies around the use of revaluation triggers, frequency and board oversight.