Home / Media’s investment woes: then there was none!

(Pictured: Charles Wu)

by Greg Bright

Media Super has lost its last professional investment manager, Charles Wu, and has advertised for a replacement. The troubled fund, which is known to have been canvassing merger possibilities, last year made its CIO position, then held by Dr Jon Glass, redundant.

Wu, a former asset consultant at Mercer, was an investment analyst and then investment manager at Media Super since 2010. Subsequent to Glass’s dismissal last year, the fund’s investments have been run by CEO Graeme Russell, the former CEO of FIRST Super who joined Media in March 2013. Wu, a CFA and member of that organisation’s education committee, was not promoted to a more senior investment role despite his qualifications. Ironically, his replacement position has been advertised through the CFA Society.

Graeme Russell and Media’s chair, Gerard Noonan, who is one of two former or current trade union representatives that have been on the Media Super board for more than 20 years, said at the time of Glass’s dismissal that they wanted to deploy the funds from his salary into marketing initiatives. There are no investment professionals on the fund’s seven-person executive team, according to its website.

Media Super oversees 38 investment mangers across the full range of asset classes. Investment consultant is Frontier Advisors, administrator is Mercer Investment Consulting and custodian is BNP Paribas Securities Services.

NOTE: Greg Bright has been a foundation member and contributing employer to Media Super and its predecessor funds since 1986.

Media Super responds:

Oh dear!  Another subjective (‘troubled fund’?) story about Media Super with a central premise based on a claim that simply isn’t true.

After our part-time CIO position was determined to be redundant, Charles Wu’s position was in fact upgraded from Senior Analyst to Investment Manager, with a commensurate salary increase.

Hardly an irony, then, that we have advertised the role through the CFA Society, given that the requirements are exactly those of the (upgraded) position held by Charles Wu CFA.

And as a former CFO and Treasurer of a substantial multinational company, and having managed First Super’s $2bn portfolio for almost five years, I think I qualify as an ‘investment professional’.

With additional support resources recently added, and with Charles’ replacement, we’ll continue to have a solid internal investment management team well supported by a leading asset consultant.   

Those are the (objective) facts – no trouble.

Graeme

Graeme Russell, Chief Executive Officer, Media Super