AustralianSuper to increase use of external managers

After being amongst the first major industry superannuation funds to take investment management in-house, AustralianSuper has now flagged increasing its use of external managers.

The big fund announced today that it would increase member assets managed by external managers to $80 billon over the next few years and expand its external manager evaluation team.

AustralianSuper head of External Managers, Joseph Wahba said the current $50 billion portfolio would increase due to the fund’s growth and there was an ongoing need to find quality external managers to complement AustralianSuper’s internal equities teams.

“Our aim is to create substantial capacity with the best managers without compromising on quality,” he said.

Wahba said the Fund’s strategy would see it appoint its first managers covering the Japanese and Indian markets, the continued build out of the China A share portfolio and a range of sector specific, specialist or bespoke mandates.

‘We are strongly committed to finding the best managers to meet our investment objectives, whether internal or external,’ Mr Wahba said.

‘In anticipation of this extraordinary growth, we have also made a number of key appointments to our manager evaluation team that will support our long-term strategy.’

AustralianSuper expects to be a $500 billion Fund by 2026.