Andrew Fisher is the Head of Investment Strategy at the Australian Retirement Trust (ART), a $260 billion pension fund in Australia. In this episode of the [i3] Podcast, we reflected on the merger with QSuper and the implications the larger scale of the fund has on the investment strategy. Enjoy the show!
Overview of Podcast with Andrew Fisher, Head of Investment Strategy, ART:
01:00 Merging two funds with different investment philosophies
04:00 YFYS performance had already started to impact QSuper’s investment management’s style
06:00 QSuper’s capital markets capabilities is top notch
08:30 You can look at the two funds and say how different they are, but you can also say how complementary they are
13:00 Ever considered using a reference portfolio?
14:30 I’m not sure whether a merger like this really ever is finalised
17:00 Any learning from the QSuper merger that you can apply in future mergers?
19:00 We consistently get surprised by our growth. We are essentially doubling every five years
23:00 You would expect traditional private market assets and infrastructure to have the best pass through of inflation costs, but it was actually the alternative private markets assets that turned out most resilient
25:00 Office and Retail Real Estate
30:00 The one thing people don’t speak enough about is how resilient equities have been during this whole inflationary period
32:30 I don’t think the job is done, but I think central banks have done a really good job
34:00 What we are trying to do with our decarbonisation strategy is to mitigate the risk from the trend towards low carbon without taking too much investment risk
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[i3] Insights is the official educational bulletin of the Investment Innovation Institute [i3]. It covers major trends and innovations in institutional investing, providing independent and thought-provoking content about pension funds, insurance companies and sovereign wealth funds across the globe. The [i3] podcast is available on iTunes, Google Podcast, Spotify, Amazon Music, or your favourite podcast platform.