With the majority of members having come to terms with the poor returns on their super in 2002, the theme for this year’s Conference of Major Superannuation Funds (CMSF), which takes place in Hobart from March 24-26, will steer away from investments and focus instead on issues of corporate governance.
The conference, with the logo ‘Super and the Public Interest’, will tackle investor concerns over corporate failings and the perceived incompetence of the boards of big business.
Conference manager Fiona Reynolds says the issue of corporate governance (an area CMSF has been very active in over the past 10 years) is particularly topical this year with all the highly publicised, though largely international, scandals.
“One of the things that we want to talk about is how super is a creature of public policy and identify what is in the public interest as far as corporate governance is concerned,” she says. “It is in the public interest that investors have a say in any company that they hold shares in and have an influence on how it is run.”
Reynolds says BHP Billiton chair Don Argus will address delegates in an opening keynote presentation titled ‘Governance — the key to growth and value’, outlining all the things he believes are wrong with Australian company boards, and the areas which need improvement.
Reynolds says the afternoon plenary session on the same day — ‘What’s wrong with Australian company boards and how various stakeholders are responding?’ — follows on nicely from Argus’ earlier address.
“The session includes representatives from the Australian Stock Exchange, the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors and the Investment and Financial Services Association, which are all in the process of putting their corporate governance policies together,” she says.
CMSF chair Mavis Robertson says another expected highlight of the conference is the presentation by Milberg Weiss of US-based law firm, Bershad Hynes and Lerach, on the pros and cons of litigation against companies for poor corporate governance.
“In the corporate governance sense, no super fund or group of super funds have ever been involved in class actions to try and recoup money that has been lost through poor corporate governance practices,” Robertson says.
Besides governance, Reynolds says the conference will also include discussion and debate on a range of other areas of interest. “There will be sessions on administration, communication, trustee issues and investments. We have a diverse audience and therefore need to cater to a broad range of issues that are of interest,” she says.
