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(September-2003) Church fund merger awaits blessing
The amalgamation trend among church funds is accelerating with news that the Catholic Schools Superannuation Fund (WA) and the Catholic Superannuation and Retirement Fund (CSRF) are considering a merger.
The merger, planned for July 1, 2004, could result in CSRF having $1.5 billion in assets and over 70,000 members.
CSRF general manager Greg Cantor says an in principle agreement has been reached between the two boards, but the merger is subject to the due diligence processes, which will begin in the next month.
He says the WA fund, which has 10,000 members and around $220 million in assets, approached CSRF regarding the merger, in a bid to deal with the additional costs and complexity associated with growing the fund.
“Basically, the WA fund is a very well run fund in its own right, but they’re getting to the size where they’re having to introduce a master custodian [and will have to face] all the extra APRA fees. There are the costs associated with maybe introducing financial planning in the future, and generally increasing member services,” says Cantor.
“There will be more significant cost savings for [the WA fund] than us, but it will benefit our fund as well because of lower unit costs.”
The proposed move follows the merger of the Catholic Schools Superannuation Fund (NSW/ACT) and the Queensland Roman Catholic Retirement plan in July 2002 to form, CSRF, the largest Catholic super fund in Australia.
Meanwhile, the Queensland Lutheran Secondary Schools Superannuation Plan (QLSSSP) has been merged into the Lutheran Church of Australia (LCA) Staff Super Fund, to create a single Lutheran super fund with assets of around $150 million.
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