Opening up early access to super for housing would have a negative effect on the balances of even those members that don’t dig into their savings, with funds forced to adopt more conservative investment strategies and hold more liquid assets.
The circa $88 billion industry fund for workers in health and community services reckons that alleviating the affordable housing crisis will boost its other investments by easing the cost of living and inflation.
BOC Super + Toyota + Equip + Catholics = Togethr
In one of the more ambitious of big super fund mergers, the BOC Super corporate fund is to follow the similar-sized Toyota Super and join with the new blended industry and corporate fund structure known as ‘Togethr’.
Set to be announced within the next week, BOC Super (formerly known as BOC Gases) will also add another layer of complexity to the already publicised deals. BOC and Toyota will each contribute just under $1 billion to the entity’s total funds under management.
The two Melbourne-based industry funds Catholic Super and Equipsuper announced their merger in October 2019 under the ‘extended public offer’ (EPO) model, whereby the funds retain their brands and direct access to members. Trustee boards, member admin and investments are consolidated.
Equipsuper formed a new trustee entity, Togethr, as it went on the lookout for merger partners among other not-for-profit funds. The first to come under its umbrella was the 2015 startup My Life My Super.
Andrew Fairley, the long-time chair of Equip, is chair of Togethr. Scott Cameron, a former chief executive of Computershare in Australia, is chief executive and Anna Shelley is the CIO of the joint venture. She was CIO of Catholic Super.
Equip and Catholic Super had combined assets of about $26 billion at the time of their joint announcement and with the latest two corporate funds should see the total close to $30 billion this year combined under the Togethr umbrella for investments.
Toyota and BOC will be merged with Equip under the successor fund transfer (SFT) system, with planned transition dates around May for Toyota and October for BOC. Equip obtained its EPO licence in 2016.
Fairley is quoted as saying at the time of the deal with Catholic Super: “Our biggest problem is our capability in terms of the number of funds we can do this with. Our licence doesn’t prevent us from industrialising the model – being the trustee of four or five funds and we are looking for partners. The only impediment would be the timing and the technology required for growth.”
BOC is one of Australia’s oldest funds, established in 1937. BOC is a subsidiary of the European Linde Group industrial gases and engineering company.
