A new report “from the coalface” of super fund investing has gone some way to quantifying the cost of shonky investment management, with members potentially losing out on hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Surging equity markets have driven the Future Fund’s return higher, but its prediction that inflation will be stickier than expected has been born out and it “remains conscious of the potential for significant deterioration”.
Cuffe and mates get together for investment publishing venture
Chris Cuffe, the UniSuper chair and former Colonial First State boss, is about to get into publishing with the launch of a weekly newsletter for investment and superannuation, called Cuffelinks.
Cuffe is joined by three other “grey-haired colleagues” who believe the industry is lacking sufficient independent quality writing about issues, at the same time defending the merits of superannuation.
The others are Graham Hand, who is editor, David Bell, an academic, and Rick Cosier, a financial planner. Hand, a former deputy treasurer of the old State Bank (which grew into Colonial through various mergers) is the author of Naked Among Cannibals, a book about the banks and how they lost the trust of their customer base. He also wrote a general fiction book, Beyond Lucas Heights.
The newsletter will be free and carry no advertising, or, as Hand put it: “We have no revenue in our business model.”
He said Cuffelinks would inform investors about markets, regulations, structures and useful ideas.
Cuffe said: “With many of Australia’s more experienced business and finance journalists no longer employed by our major media outlets, much of what we read these days is often superficial ‘infotainment’ or little more than speculation on future market movements or stock prices.”
Articles in the newsletter and website of the same name will be long by online standards – about 1,000 words. Hand and the others have already approached a range of enthusiastic contributors, who will be listed on the website.
Hand said the planned launch date was February 8.
Cuffe, the most high profile of the group behind the newsletter, who headed up Challenger Financial Group after his long and successful career at Colonial, remains on the leadership council of the not-for-profit Social Ventures Australia.
