Super

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.

The RBA says that super funds’ long investment horizons are a positive for the stability of the financial system but that widening access to the savings they contain would require more careful liquidity management.

New Zealand’s sovereign wealth has set its future 20-year rolling returns forecast well above the risk-free rate but below the annualised 10 per cent it achieved in its first two decades of operation.

It’s “quite realistic” that many super funds will take too long to build the basics of a retirement income strategy, and the system might need a licencing regime to make sure members are getting the best service.

Having handed its custody to State Street, Australian Ethical has selected the Charles River Investment Management Solution to automate its front and middle office processes for its entire investment portfolio.

While there’s a perception that defined benefit funds have mostly vanished from the earth, they still manage a hefty chunk of Australia’s pension savings and DC funds can learn a lot from them in their efforts to solve the retirement problem for their members

The $341 billion AustralianSuper has taken a significant stake in US-based DataBank to catch the AI and digitalisation waves that pension funds all around the world are trying to surf.

A coalition of Australian and British pension funds representing A$3.25 trillion of workers’ retirement savings has called on the Starmer government to reform policy settings so they can tip more money into the energy transition in the UK.

Andrew Lill has stepped down as chief investment officer of the $86 billion Rest, bound for parts yet unknown. The fund he leaves looks very different to the one he joined.

AMP will reduce the headcount across its superannuation and North platform businesses and press ahead with changes to its redundancy policies even as the Finance Sector Union warns that “staff deserve better”.

Long-term investing is not static investing. But – given a distant investment horizon and well-calibrated asset allocation – super funds don’t need to shake up the portfolio every time the world changes.

Equip Super and TelstraSuper will merge to create a $60 billion profit-to-member fund, with Northern Trust a shoo-in for its custody and fund administration needs.