Peter Costello

Calls to liquidate the Future Fund and use the proceeds to pay down government debt have grown louder in recent weeks but doing so won’t come without a cost according to analysis from WTW.

The Future Fund might make a bigger contribution to the budget if it was liquidated, according to the Centre for Independent Studies, which argues that its returns haven’t been that impressive even as its benchmark gets harder to beat.

The Future Fund pulled some of its new portfolio levers to mitigate the financial damage seen through 2022, but it doesn’t expect markets to get much better anytime soon.

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…

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…