Darcy Song

The A$175 billion Aware Super’s CIO Damian Graham said its venture capital investment in tech unicorn Canva has been good value for money but ‘pretty unusual’ in the scheme of things. He reflects on the asset class and the broader pension investing purpose.

Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan's global head of sustainable investing, Anna Murray, said she had come to terms with the anti-ESG sentiment floating around in certain investment circles, and said investors should take the opportunity to remove the label around ESG investing since it is now integral to the fiduciary duty.

The investment path to net zero may not always be clear. With no dedicated asset class and shifting risk profiles for energy transition-critical assets, the Fiduciary Investors Symposium heard that asset owners need to be flexible and ready to creatively make room in their portfolios when the right opportunities arise.

Investors who are looking to build portfolio resilience better get their team on the same page first about the underlying investment objectives in play, said Bridgewater co-CIO Karen Karniol-Tambour at the Fiduciary Investors Symposium.

If managers want to reinforce their long-term investor bona fides they should adopt appropriate time horizons for investments they make, disclose more about asset holding duration, and quit paying themselves based on short-term results. Only then will the interests of asset owners and the managers they employ be truly aligned.

For asset owners to stay the course of a long-term investing view, not only do their investment teams need to be behind the objective, but also their board and external managers. Or investors might find themselves fighting an uphill battle in a market where short-termism is prevalent.

The key to implementing a successful total portfolio approach is not about creating complexities, but rather maintaining simplicity within the shared lexicon of an investment team, said two of the approach's most well-known adopters.

Identifying best practice in pension management is not a straightforward task. As much as asset allocators may want there to be a definitive answer, differences in size, mandate and resources between different pension funds means an investment approach that works for one may not work for others.

Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC is bracing for a period of “profound uncertainty” as the fund looks to rely on more “granular” diversification and maintaining price discipline to traverse the environment.

A little-known administrative hurdle is prohibiting tens of thousands of poorer Australians from accessing the tax-free account-based pensions, as most super funds have placed a minimum balance requirement – as much as $50,000 at funds including AustralianSuper and HESTA – on retirees to apply for an ABP. The analysis by The Conexus Institute has drawn ire from advocacy group Super Consumers Australia.