Australia’s largest superannuation fund has bolstered its US operations with the hiring of five new team members to its New York office.
According to AustralianSuper, the new appointments will help it to manage its “exceptional growth” with an average annual increase in assets of 19 per cent over the past 10 years.
The fund’s head of private equity, Terry Charalambous, has also relocated to the New York office, which is mostly focused on investing in private markets.
“AustralianSuper is strategically building a team to help manage our existing US portfolio and also find new opportunities to invest to deliver long-term returns for members,” said Mr Charalambous.
“We are a growing fund looking for private market opportunities and now have a team of 15 senior investment professionals in the New York office, which was opened last year.”
In the next three years, AustralianSuper plans to further expand the office to a total of nearly 100 employees. The $261 billion super fund stated that it is seeking opportunities across the investment landscape as it grows its US portfolio.
Currently, AustralianSuper has US$51 billion invested in the US, including US$30 billion in listed equities, US$16 billion in private markets, and almost US$5.5 billion in fixed interest.
Among the newly announced appointments are Jennie Rose as senior investment director, private debt. Ms Rose has over 20 years of experience in private debt markets and was most recently in the infrastructure debt team of Barings.
Aaron Witte and Dominic Borrasch have both joined from leading boutique private equity manager SwanCap Partners. Mr Witte was appointed senior portfolio manager, private equity, while Mr Borrasch was named portfolio manager, private equity.
AustralianSuper said that both Mr Witte and Mr Borrasch had deep expertise in the North American market and had successfully built a PE investment platform that spans PE fund, co-investment and co-underwrite activities.
Meanwhile, Emilce Song has taken up the role of investment director, infrastructure. She joins from Macquarie Capital with over 15 years of experience in executing and managing North American renewable, conventional power and infrastructure sector investments.
Finally, Kang Peng was appointed associate director, infrastructure. Mr Peng has expertise in infrastructure investments across North America and the Asia-Pacific region, and was previously with Transurban Group where he was involved in over US$15 billion in transactions.
AustralianSuper Head of American infrastructure Derek Chu, who is also based in the New York office, said that the fund’s growth trajectory and purpose-driven approach had proven to be an attractive proposition for prospective team members.
“We’ve seen a lot of interest in what we are doing as an Australian fund here in New York and also globally,” he said.
“AustralianSuper is looking for the best talent internationally to join our investment team across some of the world’s most important capital markets.”
