Australian Super

Opinion

Large supers in shopping spree for leading consultants

Large superannuation funds’ hiring spree of leading consultants has continued with the appointment of Andrew Baker of Tria to AustralianSuper. Over the past 18 months, Richard Weatherhead and Thierry Bareau have left Rice Warner to work on the group insurance offering of AustralianSuper, while Guy McAliece has left KPMG to join First State Super in […]
David RowleyMay 25, 2015
Opinion

The glass jar and the black box

For most of January, myself and my colleague Dan Purves compiled a survey of the pay disclosure of superannuation CEOs, CIOs and chairs. It would have been an easier job if funds had not often placed this information in the darkest recesses of their websites. Such secrecy partly explains why the subsequent articles have been […]
David RowleyFebruary 23, 2015
Investment Strategy

Retail fund directors scrutinised over commissions

The revelation that as much as seven per cent of money in APRA-approved default funds will pay out commissions to advisers until 2017 has led to hard questions on the role of independent directors in retail funds. Speaking at the AIST governance symposium in Melbourne, several speakers expressed surprise that such a large proportion of […]
David RowleyOctober 20, 2014
Roundtables

One step at a time to LDI

Large superannuation funds are having a conversation about how they can move to offer their members a greater form of liability driven investment (LDI). Broadly LDI is an investment target that is stated and then aimed for, a target sum or a target range of money that will offer members a decent or acceptable income […]
David RowleyOctober 6, 2014
CIO profiles

The contrarian investor: a profile of John Pearce

John Pearce, chief investment officer of Unisuper, has a side bet with a member of his investment team that the Australian equity market is going to outperform the US equity market over the next year. When most people are talking about the end of the Australian boom, uncompetitive labour costs, an expensive currency and a […]
David RowleySeptember 7, 2014
Hedge Funds

Ways of investing in China: AIST Global Dialogue

Delegates at the recent AIST Global Dialogue tour heard of several ways that superannuation funds could invest in China’s amazing continued rate of growth. The value of Chinese equities has fallen from around 35 times earnings in 2007 to below 10 times earnings now. This is a clear buying opportunity for Stuart Rae, chief investment […]
David RowleyJuly 21, 2014
Investment Strategy

Super Fund Awards’ finalists announced

The finalists of the Chant West/Conexus Financial Super Fund Awards have been announced by the research house Chant West. The fund ratings firm has named finalists across 10 categories, including Super and Pension Funds of the Year. Those nominated for Super Fund of the Year are AustralianSuper, CareSuper, Equip, HOSTPLUS, MLC, Plum, QSuper, REST, Sunsuper, […]
David RowleyApril 8, 2014
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