A new report “from the coalface” of super fund investing has gone some way to quantifying the cost of shonky investment management, with members potentially losing out on hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Surging equity markets have driven the Future Fund’s return higher, but its prediction that inflation will be stickier than expected has been born out and it “remains conscious of the potential for significant deterioration”.
Sunsuper gets to bask in its own glory at Chant West Awards
Industry fund Sunsuper beat strong challenges from eight other big super funds – all not-for-profit funds – to take out the prestigious ‘Super Fund of the Year’ award at the annual Chant West awards evening in Sydney last week.
At a sell-out dinner, Scott Hartley, Sunsuper’s chief executive, congratulated his staff, which is usual for award winners, but also commented on the story of a 20-year member of the fund, who had recently written a letter of commendation.
This member, who was a retiree, thanked the fund for steering her in the financial direction she had gone. It was a rare and pleasing moment for Hartley and his colleagues. Super fund members don’t usually thank their fund for their efforts. “The only problem was,” Hartley said, “she started the letter: ‘Dear Suncorp’.”
This a problem all super funds have. There is a lot of noise, a lot of competition, and differentiating your offering is not easy.
Sunsuper also picked up the ‘Best Corporate Solutions Fund’ and the ‘Best Fund Member Services’ awards.
The other top award – ‘Best Pension Fund of the Year’ – went to UniSuper, which beat two other finalists, Colonial First Choice and QSuper.
For the full list of winners and finalists, and photos from the dinner, go to: https://www.chantwest.com.au/fund-awards/2017-winners-and-finalists
Warren Chant, Chant West principal, said the industry had split into two distinct groups: those which tried to do things as cheaply as possible, usually using passive investment strategies, and those which engaged more with their members and tried to deliver the best possible results, “which generally means active management”.
Chant said: “Ours is a great industry. Over the past 20 years we have delivered a real [after inflation] rate of return of 5.7 per cent. That’s 2.2 per cent over the target. To all of the 25 finalists in the awards, I congratulate you for your contributions.”
The master of ceremonies for the dinner was Martin Fahy, the entertaining chief executive of ASFA. He said: “What you do matters… You should be proud of making people’s retirement more dignified.”
Suzanne Holden, the chief executive of Link Group’s super admin division, and one of the two sponsors for the awards (the other being insurer AIA Group) said: “I was flattered to be approached by the organisers to be a sponsor, but then I realised I cannot win an award.” Fund administration is a component of the awards assessment process but is not singled out for an award in its own right.
Holden said the industry was often plagued by “idle chatter”. But “tonight we recognize people who actually produce… despite all the noise,” she said.
