Super

UniSuper’s pioneers of internalisation have set up their own firm providing investment management and advisory services to superannuation funds as competition picks up and the need for a helping hand grows.

The $70 billion super fund has appointed WTW as asset consultant to its board and board investment committee as it internalises a substantial chunk of its funds under management.

Australia’s largest super funds are casting a close eye over their property and infrastructure allocations amidst challenging market conditions, according to new research from J.P Morgan. And while investment internalisation continues to gather pace, not all funds are sold on its worth.

Even the fund has been caught off-guard by demand for its new index and socially conscious high-growth options, which were rolled out in response to members wanting more choice – but not so much that they were overwhelmed.

Treasury is fine-tuning the Your Future, Your Super performance test ahead of its next iteration in August. While the updates could pave the way for a better test, its extension to trustee-directed products is cause for consternation.

Australian Retirement Trust has warned that introducing more granularity into the YFYS test might only confuse members and that funds will incur greater transaction costs as new benchmarks are added to it.

Active Super and Vision Super will press ahead with a merger that will “lower costs and improve member services” in a sign of the times for smaller super funds.

The last 12 months have been challenging for Australian Retirement Trust, but the amount of noise in the market has been “quite productive”. It’s also shown that when it comes to unlisted assets, price is more volatile than value.

AustralianSuper CIO Mark Delaney believes the fund is harder on internal teams than external managers, but says that its unlisted property experience has been “the worst of all worlds”.

Jefferson & Shea Analytics will bring a new fee benchmarking service to Australia to get super funds a better deal from their external managers. The good managers will like it – the bad ones won’t.

A number of industry funds have invested in Nuveen’s US Cities Workplace Strategy as they diversify away from traditional real estate and harness thematics related to changing work and life patterns.

Proposed YFYS changes do nothing to address index hugging, according to AustralianSuper, and super funds should be compared to a universal industry benchmark rather than a larger and more complex set of indices in the performance test.