Cbus Super has announced four senior appointments to its investments team as the percentage of assets managed in-house approaches 40 per cent.
The super fund said its investments internalisation program had reduced investment costs by 41 per cent over the past four years with a cumulative benefit of $410 million for its members.
In the last financial year, Cbus Super CIO Kristian Fok said the fund had saved members $170 million in investment costs and investment fees had fallen 9.2 per cent on the previous year to 51 basis points.
“These reductions have been driven by a range of sources such as internal strategies, renegotiating fees with external managers and changes in asset class strategies to reduce costs while maintaining strong performance,” he said.
“All of this combines to continue to deliver strong returns to our members.”
Mr Fok highlighted a number of other benefits of its internalisation program for the fund’s members apart from cost savings.
“We see a whole range of benefits including greater insights for our asset allocation process, sharpening our external manager selection, highly efficient liquidity and exposure management, extensive incorporation of responsible investing principles to drive long-term sustainable returns, and more granular risk and performance analytics,” said Mr Fok.
In support of its strategy to bring investments in-house, Cbus named three new appointments and a promotion within its investments team.
Existing head of infrastructure Alexandra Campbell has been promoted to the new role of head of private markets and infrastructure in preparation of the departure of head of private markets Grant Harrison, who is set to retire in January after nine years with Cbus.
In her new role, Ms Campbell will be responsible for managing the private markets portion of the fund’s investment portfolio as well as supporting its infrastructure, property and private equity teams in developing portfolio strategies and investment opportunities.
Lisa Cuman has been named head of investment legal and governance. She previously served as head of legal, institutional clients group at Citigroup Australia and NZ and as a senior lawyer at King & Wood Mallesons and Herbert Smith Freehills.
Steward Tan has been appointed head of markets, asset allocation at Cbus and joins from Victorian Funds Manager Corporation where he served as senior portfolio manager.
His new role will include input into the formulation of investment strategy at the asset allocation level for the fund’s diversified investment options along with driving enhancements to its dynamic asset allocation process.
Finally, Ash Chandra was named research director, global quality equities. The former executive director – emerging companies analyst at Goldman Sachs will be responsible for research into global large cap companies to assess their suitability for investment by the fund’s global quality equities team.
“We are delighted to welcome these key appointments to our experienced and dynamic team,” said Mr Fok.
“The roles support our internalisation and total portfolio approach, which are central to our continued outperformance and to maximising the retirement savings of our members.”
