October 2017

17Oct

Australia. Ageing regions increasingly reliant on the pension.

Age discrimination in the workforce needs to end to combat a growing aged pension crisis in the country's oldest regions, according to the Regional Australia Institute. A RAI report has found there is lower growth, lower incomes and a higher welfare services bill in aging regions which are increasingly reliant on the pension. The report said some regions, including Victor Harbor, Port-Macquarie-Hastings and East Gippsland, already had more than 20 per cent of their populations reliant on the age pension. The 2016 census showed while...

October 17, 2017
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16Oct

Australia. Robo-advisers to expand into retirement advice

ASAP chief executive Jim Hennington said he expects the scope of advice that’s provided by automated advice providers to SMSFs will further expand over the next year. “At the moment, [it’s] very much focused on the transactions that accountants tend to get deeply involved with such as establishing an SMSF, purchasing property and LRBAs, and setting up SMSF pensions,” said Mr Hennington. He expects that automated advice will soon expand beyond this, however, into services such as retirement advice. “Over time automated...

October 16, 2017
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10Oct

Global Funds Eye Australia’s $1.8 Trillion Pension Pool

More global fund managers are setting up shop in Australia, drawn to the nation’s A$2.3 trillion ($1.8 trillion) pension savings pool and new local investment opportunities. THL Credit Inc., an alternative credit manager based in Boston, said in September that it hired a director in Australia. New York-based credit hedge fund GoldenTree Asset Management opened an office in Sydney last month after appointing a local managing director. Oaktree Capital Management, which already manages Australian pension money, headed Down Under last...

October 10, 2017
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September 2017

06Sep

Australia. Pensioners claim rebates on $31 million worth of rates

Canberra pensioners have received rebates on $31 million worth of rates in the past three years, on land worth a cumulative $14.4 billion dollars. More than 18,000 property owners are using the pensioners rebate scheme for rates, figures revealed in an answer to a question on notice in the ACT Legislative Assembly. However the number of applications for rates deferrals on the basis of hardship have doubled on the same time last year, after the ACT government changed the formula for calculating...

September 6, 2017
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August 2017

28Aug

Australia. Time for longevity risk-pooling: Mercer

Mercer consultants have told a gathering of institutional investors and advisers they must incorporate longevity pooling into portfolios to provide the peace of mind retirees want. Mercer Australia senior actuarial partner Dr David Knox argued that investment managers need to take “an integrated, more holistic approach than just concentrating on investment portfolios”. He said longevity pooling should be incorporated into retirement income portfolios in a way “that maintains the growth ratio, the exposure to growth assets, and the expected return, and...

August 28, 2017
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22Aug

73% of Aussies plan to use the Age Pension

Most Australians (63 per cent) do not have a plan for how they will live in retirement and 73 per cent plan to use the Age Pension when they retire, according to Sunsuper. Sunsuper’s latest report surveyed over 1,000 Australians and found that 30 per cent of people never thought about their retirement and four per cent did not care about retiring. The remaining 66 per cent had vastly mixed feelings. Those who felt positively (33 per cent) about retiring were...

August 22, 2017
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07Aug

The existential challenge of AI

Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics are reshaping the institutional investment management industry from all angles. Over the last decade, high-speed automated trading has already revolutionised the day-to-day operation of financial markets and robo-advice has revamped the way wealth managers engage with clients. AI is upending the profit models of many companies in institutional investment portfolios. Within funds, many workers with repetitive and numbers-based jobs are set to be replaced. But the biggest fallout on superannuation and pension managers...

August 7, 2017
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July 2017

27Jul

Australia’s Biggest Pension Fund Flags Equities, Local Property Risks

Australia's largest pension fund, AustralianSuper, is preparing for the end of the global equities run and looking to infrastructure opportunities in the United States where it believes foreign firms will in time gain greater access. AustralianSuper is a A$120 billion (£73.53 billion) fund that seeks out major positions, chief executive Ian Silk said at a Reuters Newsmaker event on Thursday in Sydney, that can affect its burgeoning book. Silk said an equities rally - Australia's benchmark has gained 43 percent since...

July 27, 2017
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June 2017

20Jun

Australia. SMSF pension phase members compliance obligations approaching

The association said pension phase members needed to ensure they had met their minimum pension payments by 30 June, and that they should not overlook withdrawing their minimum pension amount for the 2016/17 financial year. The SMSF Association’s chief executive, John Maroney, said if members were in the transition-to-retirement phase they must take care not to exceed the maximum payment. “If you don’t take your minimum pension, the assets supporting the pension account are deemed not be in retirement phase for...

June 20, 2017
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April 2017

11Apr

Australia’s Biggest Pension Fund Eyes US Infrastructure

President Donald Trump’s plan to fix America’s crumbling infrastructure with $1 trillion of private and public investment over a decade is drawing interest from 10,000 miles away. AustralianSuper Pty, Australia’s biggest pension fund with over A$100 billion ($75 billion) in assets, is eyeing the US market for infrastructure debt and equity investment prospects, said Mark Delaney, its Melbourne-based chief investment officer. “Anyone who has traveled to the US would say there are aspects of the infrastructure that could do with updating,”...

April 11, 2017
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