Australian Super to increase externally-managed assets to $80b

Australian Super is planning to increase member assets managed by external managers to $80 billion over the next few years.

The external portfolio was currently $50 billion and the increase would reflect the growth in the fund and need to find complementary external managers for its in-house team.

Australian Super previously stated it wanted to have 75% of its assets managed by its in-house team.

Head of external managers, Joseph Wahba, said “AustralianSuper is committed to a hybrid approach where our internal equity teams are complemented by high-quality external managers.

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“Over the long term, we are confident we can substantially outperform a passive portfolio by selecting and carefully combining internal and external active equity managers. Our aim is to create substantial capacity with the best managers without compromising on quality.”

The first managers would be covering Japanese and Indian markets, the China A-share market and a range of sector specific, specialist or bespoke mandates.

It had already made a series of appointments including Matthew Moore as associate portfolio manager, Rachel Mohr as senior analyst, Denise Yeong as senior analyst and Yee Khoon Tee as analyst.

While Tee was an internal promotion, the three hires had experience at super funds such as First State Super, Health Super and Victorian Funds Management Corporation (VFMC) and asset manager Frontier.

“Our new hires will be integral in deploying our proprietary manager evaluation process in a consistent manner so that members can enjoy their best financial position in retirement,” said Wahba.