With Australia’s retirement pool of savings at $4.2 trillion, this nefarious activity is going to become more prevalent, especially with hackers having access to increasingly sophisticated technology.
A Coalition Government will want to curb the union role in superannuation, especially in the industry funds – the largest superannuation sector at nearly $1.5 trillion. Setting up a royal commission to achieve this end will be overkill.
Australian super can weather the Trump storm: Whiteley
Australia’s superannuation system has the sophistication to weather any US-generated storm, including the recent unwelcome tariffs, according to the head of global external relations at IFM Investors, David Whiteley (pictured).
“If you look even over the past 20 years, Australian superannuation funds have managed to successfully navigate a Global Financial Crisis and a global pandemic. Super funds are used to managing the long term and this is what it means to manage for the long term,” he says.
Whiteley’s optimism for the long term is certain to be tested in the short term with the three major US share market indexes – the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq – all trading at their lowest levels since September 2024 in the wake of President Donald Trump’s unilateral tariff imposts, and even warnings of a US recession.
But he is optimistic that the Australian Superannuation Investment Summit in New York and Washington, which took place before the tariffs on Australian steel and aluminum were imposed, means that the US business and investment communities finally understood the Australian superannuation system’s capacity for global investment.
Hopefully, they also understood the importance of retaining a positive relationship with a nation that has significant funds to invest – a point Trump is obviously missing.
Whiteley, who attended the summit, said it was a week where both Australia and the US began to realise just how important this pool of savings was to Australia’s economy, and potentially, in time, it would become an incredibly important and influential part of Australia’s trade and investment relationships with the US and other trading partners.
“Australia is regarded as reliable, trusted, long-term ally. And that extends beyond defence to cultural, economic and trading relationships.”
He said there hadn’t been a huge awareness of the scale of existing investments that Australian super funds had in the US, nor the potential of what future investments could be.
“What’s happening is the funds are obviously investing in the US quite considerably, but … we haven’t aggregated it all up. And there is, quite frankly, surprise at that. It’s very welcome. And there was quite a sense of excitement from the potential future investment that could come from Australian super funds from both sides,” Whiteley said.
Currently, Australian superannuation funds have combined investments of $US400 billion ($A636 billion) in the US across listed and unlisted markets, with Whiteley projecting this figure to grow to $US1 trillion ($A1.59 trillion) by 2035.
According to analysis by the Super Members Council, Australia’s pension assets are forecast to surpass those of the UK in 2030 and those of Canada by 2031, becoming the second-largest pool of pension assets in the world, second only to the US.
“When you consider we’re just the 58th-largest population and 18th-biggest economy, yet the Australian super industry has been presented to some of the most significant and influential people in the US. This is the modern face of Australia’s economy,” he said.
The superannuation fund representatives at the summit were also encouraged by the range of speakers and their commentary on the future of the US. The conference heard from two serving Trump cabinet secretaries, three state governors and several leading investment and business leaders. The speakers shared insights and perspectives into how this cabinet might approach things over the next four years.
“There’s absolute confidence in the ongoing growth of the US economy. Some of the super funds have got 30 per cent exposure, their member assets are now 30 per cent exposed to the US. So, they’re obviously watching it incredibly carefully,” Whiteley said.
“The potential of this huge pool of reliable, trusted capital, and what that is projected to invest in into the future is, clearly, if you’re a US policy maker, a governor or a business leader, that’s obviously highly attractive.”
UK expansion
Late last year, IFM Investors completed the acquisition of property manager ISPT and also recently announced that the UK pension scheme Nest has partnered with IFM, becoming a 10 per cent shareholder in IFM’s holding company, Industry Super Holdings. The partnership will have a focus on UK investment opportunities.
“Those two transactions are pretty impactful for IFM, and I think they’re a reflection of the fact that we’re a genuinely unique asset manager,” Whiteley said.
“At Nest they’re looking at IFM from two levels. First, they’re looking at the expertise we’ve got in private markets, and their desire to invest much more in the UK but also looking at the purpose and the alignment. And they’re very close with Australia’s industry funds. They’ve had relationships for several years.”
