Cbus

If 2024 showed us anything, it’s that super funds have to become more than accumulation machines if they want to maintain their status as the trusted guarantors of most Australians’ financial future.

The near $100 billion construction industry fund has blundered into an ugly governance and administration debacle, and it’s unlikely that ASIC will let it off easy. Nor should it, with funds increasingly failing to provide their members with key services.

Australia’s superannuation funds have nearly the highest proportion of internal asset management in the world, but there’s plenty of questions hanging over the practice even as funds push into more expensive niche asset classes.

With almost 50 per cent of its nearly $100 billion FUM now internally managed, Cbus has seen fees come down and gained more control over its ever-growing portfolio. But in hindsight it “could have pushed a bit harder”.

AustralianSuper’s erstwhile head of equities will head to the construction industry fund as its new head of portfolio construction amidst a slew of C-suite departures.

It turns out not everybody wants flash new overseas offices. And while funds aren’t sweating the constraints of Your Future, Your Super when it comes to private markets, some assets are just better handled in the public ones – illiquidity premium be damned.

The $85 billion industry fund has poached its new head of infrastructure from Hostplus as it looks to double down on an ambitious new five-year investment strategy.

The $160 billion fund says that its essential worker housing program stacks up as an investment for both its members and the country’s future. But current policy settings mean few funds can follow its example.

Size, internalisation and globalisation are now front of mind for every large fund in Australia – but every fund approaches them differently, and there’s little agreement on the benefits of the new offshore push.

Valuations are never going to be “perfect”, but that doesn’t mean super funds shouldn’t be working harder to make them more accurate – and more intelligible to the people who really matter.