Future Fund

The appetite for risk assets is turning negative, and the world’s largest investors are scurrying away from emerging market equities and debt amidst a rising tide of woe. Few would have predicted that the initial Covid market crash – in which it was determined, once and for all, that the windows on Wall Street don’t…

The Future Fund’s unbroken run of robust returns is about to the face a tough new investment paradigm. A stronger bent to “skill-based investments” might help them weather the storm. There’s a strong argument for the Future Fund being one of the wonders of the investing world. Seeded with $60 billion 13 years ago, it’s…

Labor wants to “super-charge” the Australian economy by putting our largest pool of capital to work both at home and away. But on Your Future, Your Super, they won’t be throwing the baby out with the bath water. The Your Future Your Super (YFYS) reforms represent one of the most daring political plays by the…

Australia’s industry funds have launched a full-throated defence of their sector as the national default fund debate heats up. Politics and performance are both at stake. The idea of a national default fund is a bold one, and has been advanced a number of times over the 30-year history of compulsory superannuation in Australia. Its…

As AustralianSuper continues to grow, Mark Delaney is focusing his attention on the burgeoning private markets space and the problem of culture in megafund land. “Size can creep up on you. You stand still, and all of a sudden you’re bigger than what you think you are. I first started managing pension money 20 years…

The problem with high expectations is that you have to keep meeting them. And after a year where some funds returned 20 per cent, investors and super members are expecting more, more, more. Investors are relentlessly cheerful creatures. According to Schroders’ latest Global Investor Study, Australian investors (defined here as those expecting to invest the…

A new network of investment professionals has backed the ESG integration trend among both asset owners and fund managers with a report which draws on the views of leading investors including the Future Fund and NZ Super. Titled ‘Alpha with Impact’, the report was published last Friday (August 27) to coincide with the first member…

While Australia’s sovereign wealth fund has seen a massive return of 22 per cent, the good times won’t last. China tensions are weighing heavily on Peter Costello’s outlook. Rebounding from a negative 0.9 per cent return during the depths of Covid-19 is no small feat, but Peter Costello, Future Fund chairman, told media on Thursday…

Liberal senator Andrew Bragg believes the Future Fund should be made Australia’s default superannuation fund. But national superannuation is a political minefield. In conversation with Simon Cowan, research director at the Centre for Independent Studies, Bragg called compulsory superannuation a “fundamentally illiberal, paternalistic policy” and said that the Australian government should “take its responsibilities more…

Big sovereign and public sector funds globally have skewed their investments to their domestic markets since the outbreak of covid-19, according to a report by Global SWF. However, the two Australasian sovereign funds, Future Fund and New Zealand Superannuation Fund, have stayed the course with their investment strategies, according to spokespeople for those organisations. The…