Unlisted holdings weigh on AustralianSuper returns, but fund remains committed

InvestorDaily

AustralianSuper’s reliance on unlisted assets dragged on performance over the past year, as the rally in listed markets left funds more heavily weighted to equities outperforming their peers. Investment communications manager Sam Weaner acknowledged the gap, saying the fund “did face some challenges compared to our peers, largely due to investment style”. “A key aspect has been the outperformance of listed markets over unlisted markets in recent times. And any peer fund that was primarily invested in listed assets did perform fairly well and did better in the surveys over the past year,” he said.

“For any funds that had a mix of listed assets and unlisted assets were a bit farther down the list. This is one of the challenges that we faced over this past year.” Still, the fund is doubling down on unlisted assets while scaling up offshore to secure global deal flow. AustralianSuper has about 70 investment staff in London and 40 in New York, giving it access to opportunities that would be difficult to source from Melbourne alone. Weaner said the fund is constantly scanning regions around the world to broaden its investment universe.

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