superannuation

New Zealand investment administrator MMC has acquired the remaining half of Australian administrator IFAA Group from interests associated with its managing director and co-founder Neil Harvey. Harvey, who remains in the managing director role after the deal’s completion, said the firm would continue to look for expansion opportunities outside IFAA’s traditional base of Queensland. He…

As the dust settles on the Government’s Retirement Income Review, the search for the most appropriate and cost-effective strategies for both large groups of people and individuals has resumed, aided by some new academic work which sets principles and rules for big super funds, financial advisers and product providers. Geoff Warren, an associate professor at…

David Coogan notches up his 30th straight CMSF conference this May, at which he resigns from the finance, risk and compliance committee of AIST, and accepts another round of grateful applause for his services to the super industry and heads into semi-retirement. When he attended the first CMSF in 1990, held almost as an act…

Aviva Investors last week (November 30) launched an Australian-domiciled global equities fund for institutional investors, targeting alpha from companies that are either providing solutions to climate change or transitioning their business models for a low-carbon economy. The strategy is based on the firm’s European version of the fund. The Climate Transition Global Equity Fund, which…

When David Elia organised a takeout of 36 member services people from SuperPartners in 2008 to build Hostplus’s own service department, it caused a minor furore around Casselden Place, then home to some of Australia’s biggest industry funds. But times have changed. With the outsourcing of what is now a 100-person team to Hostplus’s new…

Notwithstanding the political and superannuation industry talk of an infrastructure-led economic recovery in Australia, and elsewhere, the listed infrastructure sector has been looking decidedly unloved of late. And much of the sector’s underperformance against the broader market this year has not been justified in terms of company earnings. Guiseppe Corona, the London-based head of global…

The ATO delivered some positive news, approving fractional property investment platform Domacom’s’ application to broaden the use of the $300,000 downsizer contribution.

The superannuation industry is deeply divided over whether the government’s decision to change the super early release rules is really in the interest of the super fund members.

The measure allows Australians to apply via myGov for access of up to $10,000 of their superannuation from April this year and an additional $10,000 from July 1 2020 for another three months.

The Grattan Institute has released its submission to the government’s retirement incomes review, a review called in anticipation of five annual increases in compulsory superannuation contributions, scheduled to begin in July 2021.

The government’s retirement income review is being told our current tax and benefit treatment of retirement incomes is a mess.