Super

Mercer Super Trust’s merger with Westpac’s superannuation assets will prepare the retail fund for a new era of competition in Australia’s rapidly consolidating super sector. BT’s Personal and Corporate superannuation funds will be merged into the Mercer Super Trust in a successor fund transfer that will create a superannuation fund with $65 billion under management…

Your Future, Your Super (YFYS) is creating a two-speed system in unlisted property where the biggest funds are forced offshore and the smallest must play in their own backyard. That might soon change. It’s a testament to the idiosyncrasies of the YFYS performance test that super funds are still trying to figure out the best…

As big super pursues an engagement-focused approach to sustainability, the challenge will be making its real-world impacts felt by both members and executives. Ask a dozen investment professionals what the key challenge for sustainability is and you’ll get a dozen answers: tracking error considerations borne out of Your Future, Your Super (YFYS); the need to…

With the advent of the Retirement Income Covenant (RIC), super funds can finally move forward on the decumulation phase. But they shouldn’t try to “boil the sea.” Despite the fact that a generation of superannuants are about to enter the decumulation phase, funds are still grappling with the challenge of producing a compelling retirement solution….

Active management will be increasingly important for defined contribution (DC) retirement savings schemes as value-for-fees, expected lower future returns and sustainable investment preferences come to the fore, according to a new MFS white paper. The analysis says the rising exposure to index investments in DC schemes has been built on at least three “misconceptions about…

Life isn’t always easy at the small end of town, but the $5 billion legalsuper is kicking against APRA’s orthodoxy that bigger is nearly always better. “It’s hard not to notice this incredible fixation in our industry that you’ve got to be big to be here in the future,” says Andrew Proebstl, CEO of legalsuper. …

In less than 20 years there will likely be a trillion-dollar super fund. So how will it throw its awesome weight around? It might have been premature to label AustralianSuper our first mega-fund. After all, it gives little room to move when coming up with a descriptor for a fund that will someday manage $1…

More diverse organisations have consistently outperformed those that are less diverse. But neurodiversity is still largely an unknown quantity in many of them. The term “neurodiversity” was first coined by researcher Julie Singer in the late 90s, and popularized by journalist Harvey Bloom. It holds that there is simply “a diversity of human minds and…

Australia’s super funds are racing to achieve massive size in the understanding that it will create untold benefits for members. But “a little but of circumspection and caution” is required. “People seem to be taking it as a fact that you just need to be bigger, and that it’s obvious you need to be bigger…

ASIC’s investigation into whether super funds took advantage of inside knowledge when switching investments in early 2020 has ended with the regulator taking no action. The drawn-out saga of ASIC’s investigation into alleged “insider trading” at super funds has come to a close, with the corporate regulator saying it will take no further action against…

While Liberals and Labor have sparred for decades, it seems that many Australians believe the ideological conflict waged over superannuation is mostly moot. The super wars have raged unchecked since the introduction of the superannuation guarantee (SG) in the heady days of 1993. But the ideological battles in Parliament and the press have been waged…

UniSuper’s decision to dip its toe into venture capital is all about members. The question is whether the fund will go further down a road that few others have tread.  It’s an investment that would barely move the dial on overall returns, but the $75 million that UniSuper has tipped into early-stage commercialisation manager Uniseed…