AustralianSuper to earmark $40b for investments across Australia: reports
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The news: CEO of AustralianSuper, Paul Schroder, is set to unveil plans for $40 billion in local investment, including critical infrastructure, over the next five years, when he addresses the National Press Club on Wednesday.
The context: Bloomberg reports that the $385 billion super fund has flagged housing, health, the energy transition and artificial intelligence as major challenges for Australia that pension funds can help address.
“We’re ready to invest but only when it benefits members — and where risk adjusted returns warrant the investment,” Schroder will state. “If you’re a company with a good idea, if you’re a government with a big plan — our door is open.”
Schroder will tout “build-to-sell” partnerships, where the government develops assets with the plan to sell or lease them to longer-term investors like his fund.
He will also make clear that pension funds should not be directed on their investments by officials, but instead should be partnered with them early “in open dialogue about how to better balance risk and make projects investible.” Adding that it would be a “disaster” for members if governments told funds what to invest in.
According to The Australian, Schroder wants the government to redesign investment opportunities by building assets in housing, health, energy transition, artificial intelligence and quantum computing that super funds can then invest in with returns for members.
“This moment calls for ambition – perhaps greater than the reform era of the 1980s and 1990s,” Schroder will reportedly say in his address. “It could be more like the mobilisation of the 1940s and 50s: bold, co-ordinated and long- term.
The sources: Bloomberg, AFR, The Australian
