For every government that wants to work alongside superannuation funds, there’s one waiting in the wings to deliver a regulatory rebuke. Big super needs to think hard about its plans to build the future.
The Albanese Government has begun to explore the potential negative impacts of super fund consolidation. The question is whether a super fund can ever be too big to fail.
Hostplus CIO Sam Sicilia believes the trillions of dollars washing around super could be put to good use in nation-building projects – and that criticisms of investing in unlisted assets are an “absurdity”.
NGS Super has made two new hires for its investment team, strengthening its capabilities in international and Australian equities as it works to make its portfolio carbon neutral by 2030.
A new CEO will go part of the way to convincing investors that Magellan can be turned around. But proving to those investors that they need Magellan, not an index, will be harder.
Overseas, Australia’s biggest super fund is a small fish in a massive pond. To achieve the scale it wants it will have to dive deeper into the private markets, meeting stiff competition from its North American peers along the way.
If negative screening worked, stocks in the sin bin should have lower firm valuations, higher future stock returns, and delist more often. They don’t.
It turns out that being a top performer can be tough as institutional clients pull money from favourites amidst broader equity de-risking.
“If you have style drift and you move into the latest hot thing, you’re gonna get whipsawed… That’s usually the death knell of a fund manager, that style drift.”
The spectre of early release still looms large over the industry, and super’s true believers want its purpose legislated to prevent Australia’s retirement savings from becoming a crisis piggy bank.
