Aware Super

Funds that want to take the total portfolio approach first need to get the total portfolio view. To do that they not only need data – and lots of it – but a rock-solid understanding of exactly how they’re going to use it.

Some members are excited for retirement, while others approach it with a “real sense of shame and fear”. Funds are going to have to figure out how to cater to both groups or risk failing them all.

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.

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

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.

With its investment in euNetworks, Aware Super gets access to a long haul fibre network spanning 50,000 kilometres and 17 countries – as well as evidence that its international push is paying off.

What matters more than big returns is making sure the right people are getting them. For members in Aware’s lifecycle default, the numbers are “phenomenal”.

In the accumulation phase the super fund CIO and investment team is at the wheel. But as more and more members start retiring they’ll have to share the driving.

Tailwinds from the United States Inflation Reduction Act underpin the $170 billion super fund’s latest co-investment in Galway Sustainable Capital, and the move will also take the fund’s private equity portfolio into financial services and further offshore.

The $170 billion super fund wants to be a lot bigger, and its teams are trying to get ahead of infrastructural demands from within the fund to win back basis points that can be returned to members.