AustralianSuper

Some of the country’s biggest super funds have navigated volatile markets and write-downs in one of their favourite asset classes to deliver solid returns in a tough year.

Big funds can be cheaper and drive hard bargains in the private markets – but it’s easier to see them coming and harder for them to get money where it needs to go.

AustralianSuper’s appointment of a new deputy CIO with the lion’s share of responsibility for its overseas investments demonstrates the growing importance of international diversification for the country’s biggest funds.

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.

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.

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”.

The Your Future, Your Super performance test will have a tough time weeding out underperforming trustee-directed products when they’re already closed, according to Chant West, while many of those housed on platforms could fail because of their unique fee structures.

A rethink of the classic 60/40 portfolio and the need to generate consistent income are driving global pension funds deeper into private debt. But this “best in a generation” vintage probably won’t last.

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.