Real Estate Profile – First State Super Asset Owners, Real Estate First State Super has spent four years rationalising its real estate portfolio, selling $1 billion of old stock. Now, the fund has turned its eye on responsible investments in the residential sector, Florence Chong writes. Read More
In Defence of Life-cycle Strategies Asset Owners, Chief Investment Officers, Innovation, Retirement Australian Catholic Super CIO Michael Block addresses some of the criticism of life-cycle strategies and argues that we should take a closer look at the concept behind it. “To always place a member who is 20 years old with a 60-year old member in the same strategy is clearly ridiculous,” he says. Read More
Real Estate Profile – Sunsuper Asset Owners, Real Estate The $66 billion Sunsuper manages both external and direct property investment mandates. Florence Chong speaks with Sunsuper’s Michael Weaver about the fund’s strategy and the attraction of niche markets. Read More
The Importance of Stakeholder Management Asset Owners, ESG VicSuper CIO Andrew Howard speaks about how stakeholder management is not simply about piling on the information. If boards receive too much data, it all becomes just noise, he says. Read More
Real Estate Profile – Cbus Property Asset Owners, Real Estate As the search for yield has driven up prices of commercial properties, many pension funds are scrambling around to find investments with decent risk/return characteristics. It is a problem that Cbus hasn’t had to deal with, largely because it owns a fully-fledged property developer in Cbus Property that has a healthy pipeline of projects. Florence Chong speaks with Cbus Super’s Grant Harrison about risk management, ESG and external managers. Read More
Funds SA Consolidates After Rapid Growth Asset Owners, Leadership & Management, Women in Finance Funds SA has grown rapidly in recent years and now stands at over $30 billion in assets. CEO Jo Townsend speaks to [i3] Insights about the next phase of growth, whether insourcing is on the cards and what it means to be an Adelaide-based investment organisation. Read More
Taking Risk Parity In-house at PSERS Asset Allocation & Strategy, Asset Owners, Financial Crisis, Innovation, Women in Finance The US$ 55 billion Pennsylvanian pension fund PSERS embraced risk parity in an effort to address the asset allocation challenges laid bare by turmoil during the global financial crisis. Read More
HESTA Eyes Fundamental Aus Equities Asset Allocation & Strategy, Asset Owners, Chief Investment Officers, Equities, Women in Finance Australian pension fund HESTA is considering creating an internal fundamental Australian equities capability in an effort to address capacity constraints and drive company engagement. Read More
Asset Allocation is Key at VicSuper Asset Allocation & Strategy, Asset Owners, Chief Investment Officers VicSuper CIO Andrew Howard has positioned the fund’s portfolio to deal with low growth and higher volatility. “I’ll happily accept a lower return than what we might have received from real assets over the last 10 years to ensure we have enough ballast in our portfolio to deliver a smoother pattern of returns.” Read More
