AUSCOAL Super gives hedging strategy mandate to SSgA

AUSCOAL Super has awarded State Street Global Advisors (SSgA) a mandate to manage its new currency hedging strategy.  

Senior portfolio manager at AUSCOAL Super Michael Berry said the move to a more collaborative hedging strategy came as the board and the investment team decided to manage currencies more dynamically through the business cycle. 

“We felt SSgA’s Australian-based currency team, with their consultative and systematic approach in strategically managing currency, was a good fit with our team and with the direction in which we’d like to take the fund,” he said. 

SSgA’s director of distribution Peter Mitchell said the new strategy, Dynamic Strategic Hedging (DSH), would help AUSCOAL Super further diversify its portfolio and increase its returns while reducing currency risk, especially downside tail risk. 

It would also give the fund’s investment team a chance to be more active in the portfolio’s currency management, he said.