ART moves to exit Russian investment exposures

Australia’s second largest industry superannuation fund, the Australian Retirement Trust has moved to exit its investments in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.

The fund issued a statement today in which its Chief Investment Officer, Ian Patrick said it had instructed its investment managers to sell any remaining debt and equity investments and not to make any new investments in either Russia, Ukraine or Belarus.

It said that in doing so, the investment managers had been instructed to ensure adherence to all legal requirements imposed by Australian law and other relevant sanctions regimes, noting that in some cases this may prove challenging.

“We cannot rule out having some minimal exposure despite the best endeavours of our managers, nor can we rule out the likelihood that some of the companies ART invests in may have some exposure to assets in the affected countries,” it said.

The statement said the fund’s portfolio exposures were very limited prior to the onset of the crisis with Russian shares accounting for less than 0.2% of the ART Super Savings account assets.

It said the debt exposure was even smaller with less than 0.1% while the Ukrainian exposure was minimal representing a very small debt exposure of around $6 million, which was less than 0.1% of total assets.