Industry funds embrace board independenceBY LAURA MILLAN | MONDAY, 13 JUL 2015 11:50AMTop industry funds have embraced the proposal to introduce a third of independent directors to their boards and see it as an opportunity to add skills and improve governance. Related News |
Editor's Choice
Start-ups, small businesses win CGT reform carveouts
Treasury has unveiled a package of capital gains tax (CGT) discount carveouts targeting small businesses, and start-ups and their investors following backlash since the reforms were announced in the Budget on May 12. Testamentary trusts will also be given a reprieve from the new tax regime.
Aware Super sells majority stake in water portfolio
Aware Super has sold a majority portion of its Australian water portfolio from the southern Murray-Darling Basin.
ASIC slaps adviser with 10-year ban, strips AFSL
ASIC has banned Brett Newbound of Victoria, a financial adviser and the sole director of Freedom Wealth Services, which has subsequently lost its AFSL.
ATO reveals highest paid jobs, postcodes
Victoria is home to Australia's highest earning postcode for the first time, according to newly released Australian Taxation Office (ATO) data, as taxable incomes, capital gains and superannuation balances continue to climb.
Products
Expert Feed
When geopolitics becomes a portfolio risk
Geopolitics is back - again - and Australian investors can no longer treat it as distant background noise.
Does association membership still matter?
With all the changes the advice sector has experienced in recent years, such as regulatory reform and increased education and professional standards ...
Digital assets and where they stand in 2026
So far in 2026 digital assets have captured the headlines largely for the wrong reasons, but that doesn't tell the full story.
Rethinking default design in a changing market environment
The evolution underway in the US DC system highlights the value of periodically reassessing default design assumptions.
Featured Profile
Brian Redican
CHIEF ECONOMIST
NEW SOUTH WALES TREASURY CORPORATION
NEW SOUTH WALES TREASURY CORPORATION
What makes an economist an economist? TCorp chief economist Brian Redican reflects on over three decades of navigating Australia's economic cycles. Riddhima Talwani writes.
As an ex-employer nominated Board member of an industry fund, I was always impressed by the employee representatives on the Board (oh those terrible union officials) and their motives with regard to the Fund..
They considered the establishment of a retirement scheme for their working class members one of their greatest achievements and industrial issues never, by my observation, conflicted with their objective of maximising the retirement benefits for their members. Their philosophical problem was that they were making their socialist members capitalists by default. They were however always interested in an employer that was behind or defaulted in his payments, but so they should be.
Anyway, the proof will be in the future returns to members as industry funds beat the retail funds hands down currently, so we will see what happens. I think it must be all to do with Mr Abbott's inability to deal with trade unions and his determination to destroy the good work that they do in this area and also he wants to give the retail funds (and their profit margin) a leg up at every opportunity.
Has anyone ever heard of any fraud or misappropriation or any negative in the administration of an Australian industry fund that has made this change necessary?