An economic and financial geography of the Australian superannuation industry
Abstract
The Australian superannuation industry has grown enormously over the past 30 years. Whereas working people are automatically enrolled at their workplaces, the head offices of many industry funds are in Melbourne rather than Sydney. Melbourne’s dominance of the superannuation industry is explained, in part, by happenstance—the location of major unions and employer groups and their initiatives in response to the enabling legislation. Other factors identified include opportunism, cooperation, and the advantages of growth. Government-prompted mergers and acquisitions have also reinforced the dominance of Melbourne, notwithstanding attempts by Sydney-based superannuation funds to out-compete their Melbourne rivals. Whereas the geographical bifurcation of the Australian superannuation industry has been mediated by the formation of a Queensland-based superfund “champion,” it is suggested that it faces numerous challenges. In conclusion, avenues for future research are sketched, focusing upon the future of Melbourne as the centre of the superannuation industry, the role of digital platforms in service delivery, pension adequacy, and the increasing importance of Australian funds in global financial markets.
Key insights
- This is one of the first academic papers in the field of economic and financial geography to document and explain the growth and significance of Melbourne as the dominant superannuation centre in the Australian financial industry.
- It has important insights for understanding the evolving Australian landscape of finance with implications for policy, welfare, and geographical theory.
- Its explanation of the rise of Melbourne combines happenstance with core concepts of spatial differentiation anchored in contemporary economic geography.
1 INTRODUCTION
Drawing on its fledgling constitutional powers, the Australian Commonwealth introduced a national old-age pension scheme in 1908.1 Such support for older Australians foreshadowed public debate in many industrialised nations about the role of government in underwriting the retirement welfare of those in need. In many of these nations, the post-World War 2 welfare state was the culmination of this movement (Corak, 2013). Even so, in Australia, broadening the ambit of the old-age pension through the decades of the twentieth century faltered in the face of macroeconomic dislocation occasioned by the great depression, the second world war, and the economic disruptions of the 1970s and 1980s (McLean, 2013, Ch. 8).
In 1992, a Labor Party government rode the success of an economic reform agenda underpinned by a prices and incomes accord with the trade union movement (Quiggin, 1998) and legislated the Superannuation Guarantee (Administration) Act 1992. The act required employers to make superannuation contributions on behalf of their employees (Garnaut, 2022).2 Five years later, 81% of working people were enrolled in superannuation funds with total assets valued at 48% of GDP. Ten years later, 90% of working Australians were enrolled with the value of funds climbing to 99% of GDP. Since then, further legislation has expanded and strengthened the national superannuation system. By 2021, Australians’ superannuation assets were worth 175% of GDP.3 Once again, governments around the world have monitored Australia’s retirement incomes policies with a view to enhancing workplace pension saving programmes in similar fashion, albeit framed by local circumstances (see Pemberton et al., 2006, on the United Kingdom).
The 1992 initiative introduced a new form of financial institution to Australia. Rather than rely on existing vehicles, in the main operated by banks and insurance companies, to manage superannuation savings, the Australian government allowed for the creation and growth of independent co-sponsored funds, within a newly established federal regulatory environment. Significantly, the Australian government usurped the legacy supervisory powers of state and local governments over their largely state-based superannuation funds. More recently, the Australian government has actively encouraged mergers and acquisitions among the funds, further strengthening the national reach of the super funds. The biggest funds now have a membership and operations that are large by international standards.4
The growth of superannuation funds has generated a shift in Australia’s financial geography. A reasonable expectation in the 1990s would have been that the superannuation sector would gravitate to Sydney, Australia’s global financial centre, the national hub for Australia’s largest investment firms, two of the big four domestic banks, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), and the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA). As of September 2022, however, Melbourne had become the headquarter city for 10 of the nation’s 20 largest superannuation funds, whereas Sydney is the headquarter city for six of the 20. Melbourne accounts for 50% of superannuation assets under management (AuM), whereas Sydney accounts for approximately 35%. In terms of membership numbers, Melbourne is significantly ahead of its traditional rival for national economic dominance (Table A1).
The emergence of Melbourne as the superannuation capital of Australia is the topic of this paper. Our explanation of its emergence begins with recognition of happenstance, albeit in a setting where personal and economic relationships were mobilised for making good on the Labor government’s commitment to financial liberalisation, labour market reforms, and macroeconomic stability.5 We make reference to the legacy of the Whitlam Labor government (1972–1975), and the macroeconomic policies of the Hawke and Keating Labor governments (1983–1996), and the intersection between those policies and the conduct of industrial relations. Especially important were the deals struck between the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) and employer groups such as the Australian Manufacturers Association headquartered in Melbourne under the umbrella of the labour movement’s Prices and Incomes Accord.
The paper is an account of how an initial locational advantage was sustained and reproduced by Melbourne-based funds, how synergies of proximity were realised in shared growth, and how Melbourne now casts a shadow over competing financial centres, notably Sydney and Brisbane, in the Australian superannuation market. We emphasise the importance of organisation building by adaptation in the context of ever-growing superannuation contributions that have discounted the costs of innovation. Reinforcing Melbourne’s dominance were gains from agglomeration, notably an extensive and growing financial services labour market and close-at-hand networks of government, industry, and union decision-makers. Competition between superannuation funds and the prospect of further consolidation in the industry is likely to reinforce the dominance of Melbourne notwithstanding attempts to build rival centres of the superannuation industry in Sydney and Brisbane.
In what follows, Section 2 positions the paper within two decades of financial and organisational studies in economic geography drawing, in particular, upon the work of Bathelt and Glückler (2011) and their observations concerning the interplay between organisations and local geographical assets in the development of innovation centres and knowledge creation. Section 3 sketches the Australian financial system and the ways it has adjusted and changed, as the nation’s pool of superannuation savings has snowballed. Section 4 discusses the emergence of Melbourne using four key factors that gave it the lead over Sydney. This work is followed by Section 5, which focuses upon recent attempts to build a rival centre in Brisbane along with a market-leading superannuation fund with operations across Australia. Section 6 summarises our argument with reflections on its utility and avenues for future research.
Our argument is informed by “close dialogue” with those were there at the time of the passage of the 1992 legislation and those that have been key players in the superannuation sector’s evolution, centred on Melbourne and elsewhere (see Clark, 1998). Recent interviews and consultations have contributed to the authors’ knowledge and experience of the sector augmenting their experience in the late 1980s and early 1990s of the actions of government officials, trade union leaders, industry leaders, and commentators directly involved in the formation and development of the sector. More recently, one of the authors has held advisory roles with some of the largest Australian superannuation funds and has discussed related research with officials from APRA, the Productivity Commission, and Treasury. Both authors have had, on occasion, opportunities to discuss these issues and others with Australia’s leading banks and institutional investors.
While we have been engaged with industry, government, and relevant political players, our argument is, by necessity, partial and contingent upon what we have learnt, our respondents, and knowledge of the industry at home and abroad (see Clark & Monk, 2017). As such, the argument developed in the paper is framed by our vantage points and those with whom we have been engaged with and have interviewed over the past 15 to 20 years. As such, we provide a geographically focused account of the emergence of the Australian superannuation industry without presuming it is the only viable account. Notice the superannuation industry is rapidly changing. As such, our account ends in early 2023. Ongoing research on the geographical form and functions of the industry taking into account mergers and acquisitions and changing global financial markets would be a valuable addition to the literature.
2 KEY THEORETICAL PROPOSITIONS
Our exploration of the rise of Melbourne as Australia’s primary host of the superannuation sector involves interrogating the literature in two ways. First, there is the question as to why some financial centres rise to dominance, especially in the context of their national urban systems. Second, there is the question of the importance of organisational structures in driving the competitiveness of key financial players: in particular, how they negotiate growth and change in the financial sector, especially in respect to risk-taking and product innovation, and, thereby, how their actions and strategies contribute to the competitiveness of their host urban centres.
Our review begins by identifying key analytical concepts in economic geography and related fields of finance that have salience for understanding the emerging landscape of Australian financial institutions and markets (Knox-Hayes & Wójcik, 2020; O’Brien et al., 2019; O’Neill, 2018; Wójcik et al., 2024). Importantly, our use of the literature is to guide a narrative-based exposition of the multi-faceted processes driving the development of the Australian superannuation sector rather than the development of a stylised model of the sector wholly reliant upon theoretical principles (see Glaeser, 2005, for a similar analytical approach). We focus on concepts that emphasise agency and context and the contingency of economic and political developments and their geographical manifestations (Christopherson, 2002; Gertler, 2010).
Bathelt and Glückler (2011) tease out the ways in which the decisions of primary actors become determinants of economic change, albeit within fields of operation that are more or less structured by spatialised entities and interactions. Three forces were emphasised by the authors: networks of social and institutional relations that sustain the value of context; the legacies (in space) of prior actions and past decisions that give rise to path-dependency; and the search for competitiveness by economic agents through variations from pre-existing regional and sectoral trajectories that, in effect, reflect contingency (Bathelt & Glückler, 2011, ch. 1).
These factors or forces are important in our account of the growth and development of Melbourne as the dominant superannuation centre of Australia. The sector’s formation was also anchored in national politics and policy processes (Collins & Cottle, 2010; Garnaut, 2022) and their response to the newly de-regulated financial landscape—albeit one still dominated (in the early 1990s) with conservative post-war banks and insurers (Merrett, 2002). Thus, the formation of new “socio-institutional relations,” as Bathelt and Glückler term them, became central in the take-off stage of a new era of incomes policy for the elderly and, concomitantly, the management of what would become an extraordinarily large savings pool centred in Melbourne.
Recognising the multiple geographical scales of the growth in Australian superannuation assets we amplify the inter-scalar dimensions of how change proceeds and the interplay of processes from the micro-level to the macro-level emphasised by Bathelt and Glückler (2011, p. 4). On one hand, we are interested in the “localness” of economic processes and their interplay with the microeconomics of the firm in the generation of local concentrations and specialisations. At the same time, we recognise the play of global economic forces driving the macroeconomic concerns of, in our case, the Hawke–Keating Labor governments and their reactions via institutional, legal, and regulatory innovations. While reliance upon such local–global frameworks is usually ill-advised—the world is never so neat—it serves an important purpose of embedding key geographical processes with the artificial and long-standing division in economics between the micro and the macro (Dopfer et al., 2004).
In The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith (1776/2007) linked the geography of factor endowments with the economics of shipping, the role of finance in the pricing of commodities, and risk management. Essential to Smith’s story were merchants located in Amsterdam and Antwerp who financed trade in grain from the Baltic states in exchange for olives and cattle from the Iberian Peninsula via ships that plied the Baltic, North Sea, English Channel, and the Atlantic. Foreshadowing modern theories of trade, Smith emphasised the importance of financial intermediation in lubricating the wheels of European and global commerce (Mayer & Vives, 1995).
In Keynesian terms, lubrication involves the aggregation of savings and their mobilisation via credit devices to enable commercial transactions and investment. This process involves setting a price (interest) for money, sufficiently high to attract savings, sufficiently low to attract borrowers and investors, and with sufficient margin to pay the transactional costs of the financial institution. In essence, superannuation institutions act as intermediaries in the same manner as banks and other historically embedded institutions like insurance companies, credit unions, and mutual societies. Superannuation funds are distinct, though, in that they are aggregators and investors of individual savings with predictable longevity. As such, managing members’ retirement savings is their most important duty.
Smith also noted that the map of financial intermediation was highly uneven with just a few nodes dominating the European landscape (Clark, 2002; Wójcik et al., 2024). Financial intermediation, whatever its organisational form and mode of delivery, is necessarily spatially embedded and benefits from co-location with other financial and specialist organisations. Co-location takes a variety of forms and, in the twenty-first century, is expressed in spatially intensive and extensive technology-based systems of communication and management (Clark & Monk, 2017). The benefits of co-location are such that there are relatively few genuinely global financial centres and usually only one principal financial centre in any one nation (Sigler & Martinus, 2017; Wójcik et al., 2019).
Typically, the key functions and organisations of financial intermediation are sited in dominant or primate cities. But financial intermediation is more than a spatially concentrated and organised system of transactions between counterparties: information asymmetries over space and time, complementarities between financial institutions and products, and the premium on liquidity are framed by market-specific expectations and arbitrage opportunities (Clark, 2022). For related firms and organisations, managing risks tends to reinforce the advantages of primate cities in city-systems notwithstanding technologies that under-write the spatial decentralisation of trading. Even so, the dominance of a nation-specific financial centre can be challenged over time—witness Boston versus New York, Montréal versus Toronto, and Melbourne versus Sydney (Davison, 2005; Porteous, 1999).
Being the switching points for financial flows, the roles and specialised functions of financial centres are also framed by market structures, the patronage of governments, and the growth of financial companies that operate nationally and internationally. It is also likely that financial centres can become hostage to the competitiveness of “local” service providers in national and international markets. Melbourne-based financial institutions were vulnerable, for example, when manufacturers local to Melbourne faced hostile national and international trading conditions during the 1890s, the 1930s, and the 1970s. Since Sydney was not as vulnerable to shocks in the trade of manufactured goods (Logan, 1980), this provided Sydney an increasing share of national financial services activity through time. See also Martin (2018) on the significance and persistence of economic and financial shocks for city and regional development.6 By the mid-1980s, Sydney had become Australia’s foremost financial centre and the national gateway to international financial organisations and institutions.
As such, it is surprising that Melbourne has been able to forge something novel over the past three decades. Research in economic geography emphasises the importance of path dependence in driving spatial differentiation (Knox-Hayes & Wójcik, 2020; Martin & Sunley, 2010). Underpinning path dependence are factors such as agglomeration economies, embedded norms and conventions, formal and not-so-formal relationships, and sunk costs (Bathelt & Glückler, 2011). While these concepts are important in explaining long-term geographical patterns of economic activity, recurrent economic and policy shocks indicate that there is also a premium on adjustment and resilience for firms and regions rather than adherence to patterns of behaviour from the past (see Glaeser, 2005; Martin, 2018).
Innovation is critical. Basile et al. (2022) show that institutional innovation can have long-lasting effects on regional patterns of growth and decline. They link the growth of Italian knowledge industries and innovation with nineteenth century national and regional policies of investment in education. Even here, though, capitalising on a positive legacy did not (and does not) ensure success. In any event, showing cause and effect is challenging given that forces of innovation might originate outside established institutions and systems of market exchange that hitherto dominated a region or set of regions. In this paper, we emphasise the role of superannuation entrepreneurs who grasped the opportunity to build organisations that were different from the norm in Australia.
3 THE AUSTRALIAN FINANCIAL LANDSCAPE
3.1 Banking, insurance, and other financial institutions
The history and geography of Australian banking and finance have been well documented (Roberts & Amit, 2003; Seltzer, 2010; Wright, 1999). Here, we begin with the second half of the twentieth century and the 1960–1961 credit squeeze that affected all states and, in particular, the states of New South Wales and Victoria, both of which were experiencing migration-driven population growth and housing booms.7 East-coast state governments had long-established savings banks with state-wide branch networks designed to service, in Victoria’s case, borrowers and savers in suburban Melbourne, agricultural communities such as those in the Mallee and the Western District, and regional manufacturing centres such as Ballarat and Wodonga. Through to their privatisation in the 1980s, the services of the state banks were modest in scope, with transactions being usually relatively small and uncomplicated (Keneley & McKenzie, 2008).
Deficiencies in both their management skills and their financial bases, leading to recurrent balance sheet crises in recessions, drove the privatisation of these state banks. In contrast, small, private investment banks located in state capitals—reliant on families and trusts that owed their wealth to agriculture and manufacturing—prospered as the Australian financial market was deregulated. New banks were also established, the stand-out example being the transformation of merchant bank Hill Samuel into Macquarie Bank, now one of the world’s leading commercial trading banks specialised in infrastructure and funds management.8
As part of a wider shift in regulation in pursuit of macroeconomic policy settings underpinning market liberalisation, the Hawke–Keating Labor governments saw the need to re-structure and re-focus the financial services industry. The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) was afforded enhanced powers, and two regulatory agencies were established: the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC). These were charged with, respectively, the soundness of financial institutions and the integrity of market behaviour. Similarly, the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission (ACCC) was empowered to regulate competitive practices across Australia and within the financial sector.9
Changes in the banking sector were profound. Financial statistics10 for 1982 show that banks held AU$77.4 billion in total assets.11 By 1992, savings and trading banks held $361.9 billion in total assets, growing to $547.8 billion by 1997. By 2000, government-encouraged mergers and acquisitions had produced a highly concentrated banking industry dominated by “the big four”—with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) and Westpac headquartered in Sydney, and the Australia and New Zealand Bank (ANZ) and National Australia Bank (NAB) headquartered in Melbourne. These banks have maintained large and spatially extensive retail networks and significant asset management divisions that rely upon investment mandates from a variety of Australian and Asian clients including insurance companies and superannuation funds.
Over the much the same period, credit unions and building societies became increasingly market oriented and competed for market share against smaller banks. The regulation of these organisations tended to focus on solvency rather than functional performance and the scope of services. From 1982 to 1997, building society financial assets declined from $1.3 billion to $0.9 billion, while assets held by credit unions remained steady at around $1.5 billion. Financial assets held by Australian insurance companies grew from $11.6 billion (1982) to $38.6 billion (1992) and $60 billion (1997). While matching the performance of banks, the relatively small volume of financial assets in the sector tended to limit insurance companies to generic retail products.
3.2 Organisational options
Prior to the Australian Superannuation Guarantee Act 1992, provision of superannuation was largely at the discretion of employers. Superannuation benefits, contributions, and eligibility criteria (if any) were typically set by industry-wide collective bargaining and given formal status through the arbitration system. A great deal has been written about the Australian system of arbitration and industry awards. Relevant sources include Bray et al. (2001), Briggs (2001), and Dabscheck (2001). Dominated by construction and manufacturing industries, the nature, provision, and value of superannuation benefits were highly uneven within and between industry sectors and across Australia.
Australian financial accounts for 1987 put superannuation savings at $76 billion, up from $17 billion in 1982. Five years after the passage of the 1992 legislation, national financial accounts put superannuation assets at $185.8 billion—an astonishing rate of growth. Over the period 1992–1997, superannuation assets increased 250%, whereas banking assets increased only by two thirds. As such, the growth of superannuation assets far outstripped the growth of banking assets and, for those aware of the rapid changes in the structure of the Australian financial system, presaged the arrival of pension fund capitalism in Australia (Clark, 2000). Passage of the 1992 legislation set in motion the transformation of the superannuation sector, challenging the efficacy of incremental adaptation while putting in play the relevance of existing organisations inside and outside the sector. The financial services industry had to adapt rapidly to a very different competitive environment compared to the settled landscape of finance prior to 1992.
In these kinds of circumstances, organisation theorists identify a range of responses to market growth (Hachigian, 2022). Existing organisations can be mobilised to extend their reach and capacity and accommodate changing demand for services. For industry sectors with established superannuation funds, growth in the demand for pension services was accommodated by scaling-up or by consolidating existing, albeit independent, organisations operating in the same industry sector. Notable, in this regard, was the development of the university sector fund, UniSuper, through the amalgamation of university-specific pension schemes and the incorporation of contributors beyond academics and general staff. In this respect, a template for the future was created, although the process of amalgamation and consolidation has taken time and is subject to surveillance by the sector’s regulators.
Another option is to rely on existing providers, whether directly or indirectly related to the nature of the services required. So, for example, many employers responsible for making good on the statutory requirements in the enabling legislation sought the assistance of financial companies and service providers. Banks, credit unions, building societies, and insurance companies could have played major roles in helping employers meet their obligations. Here, though, two factors conspired to limit their efficacy. Building societies and credit unions were too small to be effective service providers given the urgency of scaling-up to meet statutory obligations and a rapidly growing savings pool. Insurance companies were similarly constrained and were reliant on independent agents for attracting high-value clients into products like life insurance, typically through unpopular fees-based arrangements.
For the banks, there were significant hurdles in adapting existing account and data management systems. Moreover, the big four banks were less interested in attracting large numbers of account holders, most with small-value account balances, than they were committed to maintaining control of national and institutional credit markets. Smaller independent banks lacked the management capacity and resources to extend their reach beyond local markets with rudimentary modes of service provision.
Before 1992, pension services were provided largely by specialised firms that managed small and independent employer-sponsored pension plans, with a high degree of dependence on other providers of actuarial, accounting, consulting, and IT services. With compulsory saving for retirement, these firms were an immediate destination for many small employers. Recognising the opportunity, Mercer, the global employee benefits company, developed an integrated platform and service system for small and medium-sized (employer-sponsored) firms offering, at its peak in 2012, over 200 plans to more than one million accounts.
The third option is to hijack existing organisations and adapt them to emerging needs and circumstances.12 Hachigian (2022, p. 5) refers to hijacking as “the process of appropriating the structures and institutional arrangements in which [organisations and decision-makers] are embedded for an alternative purpose, and in doing so, transforming the system.” Her focus was on the ways business and investment could be hijacked in pursuit of social and community goals. In our case, the hijacking of existing organisations allowed superannuation sector entrepreneurs to build standalone funds, with the experience of the construction sector’s superannuation fund, CBus, which had been established in 1984, providing a path forward.
Initial success in this third option came about from relying upon existing relationships between employers and unions such that the parties to industry awards and the arbitration process used the opportunity to build superannuation funds in their own image. In doing so, they began by partnering with providers of account-based services and by acquiring small scale market intermediaries. This strategy was effective in those industries where existing employer-based pension plans were small or had limited scope but where the potential number of plan members was large.
The success of the third option was not preordained. At the time, those who joined the organisation-building project took significant risks relative to their (then) stage of career and financial-sector experience. Furthermore, there was considerable uncertainty as to the viability of (what are now called) industry funds, their public acceptance, and the willingness of employers to join and commit long term. Clark (2022) provides a commentary on the types of career risks and uncertainties involved, the interplay between the odds of success and failure when making forward commitments, and the anxiety involved in estimating employment prospects in the context of unknown technological change.
3.3 Melbourne and the rise of the industry funds
Interviews with superannuation fund executives involved in the genesis of the industry funds identified three factors as significant in the emergence of Melbourne as the home of these funds. First, being the headquarters of the Australian trade union movement, Melbourne was home turf for union officials seeking to take advantage of the 1992 legislation. Second, being the headquarters of significant employer groups, Melbourne was the historic meeting place for employers when negotiating industrial agreements with unions.13 Third, Sydney’s domination notwithstanding, Melbourne had an existing financial services industry with providers that were willing to adapt to emerging opportunities. The first and second factors were necessary conditions for the third factor to matter.
The initial success of the industry funds was based on the ambition and negotiating skills of senior union officials, the practised brokering of deals with employer groups, and the willingness of executives from financial companies to leap into the unknown. Informants have emphasised the acumen of union officials along with the willingness of employer representatives in taking the opportunity to “make” their own superannuation funds. These accounts provide a compelling explanation of why Melbourne took the lead over “global Sydney” in establishing industry funds.
In sustaining growth, other factors should be recognised. Our interest here is with those who led the growth of the superannuation industry in Melbourne, the people with a disposition to undertake career risks for innovation (Mewes et al., 2022). In the next section, we discuss four factors of agency and organisational leadership that sustained innovation. We do not claim that these were exclusive to the Melbourne financial ecosystem. Innovation in Melbourne and in Sydney overlapped and reinforced one another. Nonetheless, initial opportunities in Melbourne through the collective bargaining process along with a willingness to grasp the career-based risks and opportunities made a difference.
4 CRITICAL FACTORS
4.1 Opportunism and strategy
There is considerable debate about the origin of industry-specific innovation and management, with some analysts arguing that cities and regions are essential for mobilising knowledge, given overlapping networks between firms across and beyond industry boundaries. Recent studies of tech-related innovation emphasise reinforcing spill-over effects within Silicon Valley, the south-east of England, and the like. But there is debate about the relative contribution of industries versus regions (Delgado, 2018; Zhang & Rigby, 2022). Here, we stress the importance of innovation in management and organisations for realising the objectives of funds as the intermediaries of choice responsible for member’s retirement savings over the long term. We focus on the benefits of cooperation with like-minded people and organisations in sustaining innovation in the sector.
The introduction of compulsory superannuation was, in part, a political response to the challenges associated with maintaining macroeconomic stability in the face of burgeoning international demand for Australian commodities and its effects, especially price and wages inflation. The Labor government, like governments before and after, sought ways of stabilising the Australian economy in the face of inflationary pressures and, in this case, saw superannuation as part of an overall incomes policy capable of cushioning “excess” wage demands. This strategy was legitimated, in part, by broader concerns for the welfare of retired workers and the desire of the government to add a historically significant pillar to Australian social welfare alongside its successful implementation of Medicare.14
Political initiative created the opportunity for jointly trusteed industry funds to be quite different from company-sponsored occupational pension schemes. State and federal governments had their own occupational pension schemes, as did leading corporations such as BHP and the big four banks. But by 2022, 45% of superannuation savings in Australia were held by the industry funds, far outstripping the public service and traditional retail funds, each with 26% of the national total.15 The new superannuation funds focused from the outset on industries where pension coverage was limited and where there were large numbers of relatively small firms with employees on average or below-average wages. In this respect, there was limited competition from existing pension providers given the marginal value of attracting relatively lower paid participants. This was a fertile ground for the emergence in Melbourne of industry funds such as AustralianSuper, CBus, HESTA, and HostPlus.
4.2 Culture of cooperation
Existing models of management in the commercial pensions and insurance sectors were judged to be imperfect blueprints for accommodating and sustaining growth. In many cases, the management of defined benefit (DB) plans, involving both public- and private-sector employees, was outsourced to financial service providers and insurance companies or held inhouse by the finance departments of sponsoring companies and government departments (often as unfunded liabilities). As the new funds sought to adapt practices and organisations in the finance sector to the growth of defined contribution (DC) pensions, existing providers were increasingly revealed for their shortcomings. In particular, the rate of superannuation contributions and the relatively small value of average contributions challenged the delivery model of conventional providers.
Reinforcing Hotz-Hart (2000, p. 433), who argued “innovation is an interactive learning process that requires knowledge exchange, interaction, and cooperation among various actors in a production network or value chain,” industry fund entrepreneurs sought ways to learn from one another, recognising the success of one fund need not come at the expense of another. Equally, the failure of one or more funds early in the development phase of the sector would have caste a long shadow over the emerging industry fund model. Knowledge and information sharing became a means of in situ collective learning and development even if at odds with the business models of many consulting companies and related commercial advisory services.
Superannuation funds sought to learn from one another and from international experience in ways that sustained the wider eco-system. Third parties developed conference and seminar programmes utilising overseas experts in multi-fund settings. Early programmes focused on the international market for custodial and pension services, solutions to common problems in DC systems, and the architecture underpinning successful relationships with external providers (such as custodians). In these ways, learning-by-doing and domain-specific innovation reinforced the premium of being part of the Melbourne eco-system. This accelerated the development of co-located funds whose executives either interacted with one another or were part of an informal information exchange system (see Delgado, 2018, on the advantages of co-location in theory and practice).
By 2002, the largest industry funds had become direct sponsors of third-party briefing sessions and conferences, inclusive of what might otherwise have been competing funds, and thereby accessing knowledge that would otherwise come from one-on-one briefings from expensive consultants. Specialist advisory companies emerged to manage shared offshore training courses, study tours, and industry conferences such as those sponsored by the US trade newspaper Pensions and Investments. From there, it was a short step to bespoke programmes such as those found in UK and US universities. At an institutional level, global multi-fund knowledge-sharing groups involving Australian funds have been formed with the aim of fostering collaboration in learning, management, and product development.
4.3 Growth: scale and scope
Having conceived the building blocks for the growth, industry funds’ executive managers faced a set of challenges. A first was the fit-out of each fund with governance frameworks, management systems, and reporting protocols. This occurred in an unprecedented environment of rising contributions, hence the need for high levels of deployment, and the need to build trust, especially in relation to fund members. In short, the emerging industry funds had to learn to cope with rapid growth.
Growth in contributions and transactions created opportunities to build accounting and management systems that were more advanced than those common in banks and pre-existing superannuation funds, especially in the public sector and corporate superannuation funds, which confronted the 1992 legislation with a large portion of their participant base already enrolled. The experience of this latter group was of long-term incremental growth without the pressure of establishing new models of management and organisation.
In contrast, anticipating rapid growth throughout the next decade, industry funds invested in systems of information and management that could be scaled-up.16 Executives were hired from banks, insurance and actuarial companies, and accounting firms. They tended to be younger and in the early stages of their careers. As management systems matured, the focus shifted to enhancing accountability and oversight especially through trustee and board responsibilities. Good fortune came from growth and stability in global capital markets building members’ confidence in the investment strategies of the burgeoning industry funds. The 1998 Asian crisis and the 2002 tech bubble crash came at times when the funds had not extended their investment portfolios beyond Australia. By the global financial crisis, 2007 to 2012, however, industry funds had established effective investment departments with portfolios weighted judiciously across products and geographic markets, thereby avoiding the catastrophic losses in other jurisdictions such as the United Kingdom and the United States (Gerrans, 2012).
Growth was accompanied by scaling-up and extending scope. Crucial in this regard was establishing systems of engagement with members—beginning at enrolment through to the provision of advice and ultimately the disbursement of retirement benefits. With adaptable and flexible information systems, industry funds fostered a sense of belonging alongside a sense of engagement with the issues faced by members as they moved through life-cycle stages. In this respect, intensifying member engagement was simultaneously a competitive strategy and a commitment by fund administrators to tailor product options given marked variations in account balances.
Scale and scope were also associated with building investment departments around a diverse set of asset classes with specialist teams focused on the relative performance of fund-specific retirement products. Whereas many banks and some insurance companies with significant asset management operations used internal divide-and-conquer strategies to optimise the performance of competing teams, industry funds were able to foster cultures of collaboration and common purpose thereby minimising the negative effects of individualised performance management regimes. This strategy enabled industry funds to extend investment horizons—by asset class and geography.
4.4 Mergers and acquisitions
Large numbers of participants, large volumes of contributions, and significant account balances have allowed industry funds to spread the costs of service provision and thereby ensure value-for-money over the long term. Pension regulators around the world are conscious of the costs of service provision given that participants often lack the information or initiative to switch between providers. Size also enables pension funds to tailor pension products to different segments of membership.
Mergers and acquisitions among industry funds have allowed for ambitious growth targets via step changes in the inflow of pension contributions and the volume of assets under management. Mergers and acquisitions have also offered senior executives and board members the opportunity to significantly discount the costs of service provision and thereby build competitive advantage. Often, an acquiring fund has offered roles within the merged entity to other funds’ employees and board members. In this manner, the acquiring funds not only secure scale economies but build organisational capacity via inherited talent in the highly competitive Melbourne market for professional services.17 As a result, some industry superannuation funds have grown dramatically in size and scope through mergers and acquisitions. As we note above, UniSuper acquired and merged the pension funds of many Australian universities. In doing so, they integrated university-based legacy DB plans with newer DC schemes to align with the 1992 legislation (Gerrans & Clark, 2013). Similarly, by acquiring and modernising existing construction industry pension schemes, CBus has offered options to employers who otherwise would have struggled to offer a competitive suite of pension options.
The standout instance of mergers and acquisitions is AustralianSuper, which was formed through the merger of two “start-up” industry funds from different sectors, with contrasting occupational and income profiles. In this case, AustralianSuper gave up its industry focus to become an open-offer fund for any employer or worker across the nation. Prior to mergers among Queensland superannuation funds (discussed below), AustralianSuper was the nation’s largest superannuation fund and likely will be again the national leader by 2025. By 2040, AustralianSuper could be managing funds exceeding $1 trillion.18
Mergers and acquisitions among the industry funds have reduced unit costs and set performance benchmarks in ways that smaller corporate and state public sector plans find difficult to match.19 Our description of management culture and board accountability is a statement about the creation and protection of value by industry funds relative to commercial competitors. In the case of public sector superannuation, state governments have been reluctant to seek alliances with industry funds, and commercial providers such as Mercer and Westpac have persisted with their state-facing platforms, notwithstanding the challenges in sustaining progress in capacity and technology. Given the for-profit status of these platforms, there is much speculation as to whether they can survive competition from industry superannuation funds as regulators focus on the fees and charges levied on contributors (Morris, 2018).
5 THE QUEENSLAND CHALLENGE
On 28 February 2022, the Australian Retirement Trust (ART) was established through the merger of two Brisbane-based funds, QSuper and SunSuper. This new fund brought together $220 billion in savings, 2.1 million members, and 160,200 participating employers with a projected annual net inflow of approximately $14 billion.20 In doing so, ART became Australia’s largest superannuation fund.21 QSuper was a multi-employer state-sponsored fund that serviced public sector workers such as nurses, police, and teachers. SunSuper brought private-sector employers and related unions to the new fund and was sponsored by the Queensland Chamber of Commerce and major trade unions. The Queensland government pension fund provided DB and DC pension schemes and, by some accounts, was dominated by older employees with relatively high-value account balances. By contrast, the private-sector fund offered a DC scheme with younger participants and lower, though growing, account balances.
It was recognised by leading figures in Brisbane that superannuation fund mergers and acquisitions across Australia could relegate Brisbane-based superannuation operations to branch-office roles within much larger Melbourne-based superannuation funds. Traditional rivalry across Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane played a role in creating the Brisbane-based champion. And industry commentators have noted that being a branch office of Melbourne-based funds could have stymied the development of Brisbane as a financial centre. Failure to act could have left the two funds vulnerable to the loss of talented and skilled professionals seeking the benefits of careers in larger organisations elsewhere.22
In the past, the state-government-owned Queensland Investment Corporation (QIC) held investment mandates from QSuper and, to a lesser extent, SunSuper. It continues to have a role in managing the assets and liabilities of the Queensland government’s (closed) DB pension scheme. In the aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2008–2012, the two superannuation funds brought in-house many investment functions including the QIC investment mandates. Sustaining a significant multi-asset investment programme requires scale and scope—hence the creation of ART. As it stands, QIC manages approximately $95 billion on behalf of various government and non-government clients. As such, the formation of ART and the on-going success of QIC could elevate Brisbane to be a significant Australian financial centre.
Even so, Melbourne-based superannuation funds account for approximately $850 billion of the $2 trillion Australian superannuation sector. Melbourne remains the home of the largest superannuation funds such as UniSuper ($100 billion), the federal government’s Future Fund, which manages approximately $300 billion, the funding base for federal public servant pension schemes, and specialist investment firms such as IFM, which is owned by 21 Australian superannuation funds with assets under management of approximately $90 billion.23
Member retention underpins the pricing and nature of the financial services offered to participants. This factor is important for the capacity of superannuation funds to meet the needs of small segments of participants with large account balances. Most of ART’s 2.1 million members are in Queensland and can be served both electronically and through drop-in centres in Brisbane and regional centres including Cairns, Gladstone, McKay, and Townsville. By contrast, AustralianSuper relies on technology and voice-based social media to engage and communicate with members geographically dispersed across Australia.
Employer and participant inertia dominates the Australian superannuation industry such that the threat of inflows and outflows from a fund can be exaggerated. Nonetheless, there are dangers for any large superannuation fund in relying on inertia to sustain a growth pathway. Such a strategy could see it heavily reliant on one state’s population and employment growth while, at the margin, competing for participants willing and able to switch between providers, in-state and out-of-state. Given the premium on retaining participants with large account balances, engagement is a vital, albeit expensive, service.
There is also a risk that in a single state where one fund dominates the provision of superannuation services employer and participant inertia may negatively impact the quality of services, generate higher unit costs, and lower fund performance. In the absence of competing local funds, and given the historical connections between participating employers and the newly merged entity, out-of-state funds may find it difficult to compete with ART. While barriers to entry are modest, inertia, limited services, and the lack of a visible presence may reinforce the dominant position of the newly formed entity. Academic research suggests that firms that control 80% of a market often engage in “anti-competitive” behaviour counter to competition law and regulation (Whish & Bailey, 2021, p. 47). The absence of competing local funds can result in limited opportunities for significant growth through acquisition, in contrast to the large Melbourne-based industry funds.
6 CONCLUSIONS
Will Melbourne and its superannuation funds maintain or even increase their share of the Australian superannuation market (measured by membership and assets under management)? This is a complex issue and has various dimensions. Assuming the population of Australia continues to grow at about 1–1.5% per year along with the numbers of working age and retired people, it seems likely that large multi-industry funds will match or better that rate of growth in terms of numbers of participants.24 On-going consolidation of the industry through mergers and acquisitions in Melbourne and across Australia is likely to strengthen the geographical reach and significance of these funds nationally and internationally.
As it has grown, the Melbourne-based superannuation industry has hired staff from the local business services industry, banks, insurance companies, government, and universities. It has also recruited staff from out-of-state and internationally—industry respondents note that the recruitment and retention of staff are a key factor affecting both the quality and scope of services offered participants and the ability of funds to meet obligations imposed by government regulators and competition from other industry providers. Given the competition for labour, one option is to spread service provision to provincial and out-of-state cities not subject to the same level of competition for talent as in both the Melbourne and Sydney financial services industry. Another option is to out-source the provision of certain financial services to India, the Philippines, and elsewhere in southeast Asia.
Decentralisation relies upon digital platforms, internet-interface, the inter-operability of software and hardware, and security. While superannuation funds developed their businesses using software inherited from the banking and insurance sectors, more recent growth in scale and scope has challenged global software and systems providers to meet Australian superannuation industry needs and standards of performance. Bespoke infrastructure solutions offer funds system-wide security and operational coherence. However, bespoke solutions can become blind alleys that, over the longer-term, deflect funds from the leading edge of industry innovation.
Here are three important research questions. One is whether the digital infrastructure of the industry will reinforce or discount the dominance of Melbourne. Another is whether technological disruption will alter the size and shape of the dominant players and hence the premium on a Melbourne location. A third is whether such re-vamped nationwide superannuation funds can provide the level of services and modes of client engagement that are consistent with members’ interests and their capacity to make effective decisions on such important quality-of-life issues.
Whatever the future of the superannuation sector, compulsory superannuation has become central to the long-term welfare of Australian workers in retirement. For the designers of the national policy, the organisational and institutional architecture underpinning its operation provided government an additional device for managing macroeconomic stability. It has also provided the average Australian with the prospect of enhanced retirement living albeit stratified by age, gender, and the capacity of participants to plan for retirement (Feng et al., 2019). For Australians who face the challenges of everyday life, compulsory superannuation is a welfare policy without a premium on the individual volition and competence needed for making sophisticated financial decisions. Nonetheless, there are dissenting voices that link this policy with the risks of financialisation and neoliberalism (Bryan & Rafferty, 2018).25
Compulsory superannuation also added a new institutional category to the Australian financial landscape, thereby bypassing savings banks and other established financial organisations with little to offer small account holders. While Australians rarely check their account balances, there are some (those with large account balances) that have come to appreciate the flexibility of their superannuation accounts in terms of accommodating added contributions and, in rare cases, being a (modest) rainy day fund when things go wrong. Importantly, the development of the sector has created many thousands of jobs and has broadened the scope of the Australian financial services industry. Industry funds are important clients of the Australian and international finance and asset management industries.
The architects of the Australian superannuation policy were arguably more concerned with macroeconomic policy, including financial sector resilience than they were concerned about the spatial form that the industry might take and where it might locate. We have suggested that Melbourne’s success in superannuation and related financial services is owed to happenstance, the ambitions of motivated individuals, and the repurposing of existing organisations to accommodate the burgeoning flow of superannuation contributions, their investments, and the governance and management of related organisations. Government did not legislate a “required” form of a superannuation fund and existing pension funds (often offering defined benefit pension benefits) were not the obvious option. Only recently have regulators sought to influence fund shape, size, and governance.
Three factors have contributed to the longer term success of the organisational arrangements that we have observed. First, until recently, financial markets have been either benign or a positive influence on the growth and stability of even the smallest funds. In many cases, emergent funds have not only survived national and global financial crises but have prospered through periods of financial turmoil over the past 25 years (Gerrans, 2012). Second, leaders of the industry have been able to link their personal and political ambitions with the formation and growth of superannuation funds and the welfare of Australians in a common enterprise. Third, as a recently announced review suggests, the federal government has introduced more and more tests of performance emphasising pension adequacy in retirement among other factors (Australian Government, 2023).
Separately and together, the aftermath of COVID 19, wage and price inflation at home and abroad, and the war in the Ukraine pose threats to the month-to-month and year-to-year financial performance of financial markets and Australian superannuation funds. Global wealth portfolios have sustained losses and private equity portfolios are unlikely to insulate funds from successive year-to-year losses in members’ accounts. Whereas superannuation funds were able to out-perform through previous global downturns, this is less likely as inflation and stock market turmoil around the world take their toll of members’ account balances. Funds may face challenges to their right to self-governance. As well, government and opposition parties may seek political advantage in circumstances that few financial institutions are likely to find congenial to their interests.
At the same time, the industry has now outgrown Australian financial markets. The opportunities available in the domestic economy and financial markets are small by international standards. Larger funds have gone offshore in part to gain access to bigger and more diversified investment opportunities. In doing so, they have followed the lead provided by IFM, Macquarie Bank, and similar investors that are less like conventional banks and more like standalone investment companies with the size and scope to reach to North America, Europe, and elsewhere. How they have done so, recognising the challenges associated with managing at a distance, is an important research topic (Clark & Monk, 2017).
Finally, research has also begun to focus on the nature and scope of responsible investment and ESG strategies undertaken by superannuation funds. A recent example was the intervention of Melbourne-based funds in the governance of the miner Rio Tinto in the aftermath of the destruction of Indigenous artefacts in caves adjoining its operations in Western Australia. Superannuation funds are not always visible. Nonetheless, their responsible investment activities are different from other types of financial organisations, including major banks (see Urban & Wójcik, 2019). How and why this is the case is an emerging research theme given the commitments made by governments and corporations at COP26 and elsewhere (Cojoianu et al., 2021).
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The first named author was a principal in the Monash University-CSIRO sponsored research programme on Australian superannuation (2013–2018). The authors have benefited from discussions with Australian and international respondents knowledgeable of the global financial services industry, pension funds, and regulation including Peter Curtis, Michael Drew, Allan Fels, Gary Johns, and Ian Silk. Early conversations with the late Mavis Robinson via Shirley Clark provided insights as to the role of “super” in the Australian labour movements’ ambitions to remake capitalism. As well, Ron Martin, Ashby Monk, David Vines, and Dariusz Wójcik helped frame the issues and made connections relevant to the long-term research programme on the geography of finance underpinning this paper. The authors are grateful for the comments of the referees and the editor. Interviews by Phillip O’Neill and research assistance for this paper were funded by Australian Research Council grants DP16010385 and DP130104319. Human Research Ethics approvals H12356 and H10271 apply, respectively.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT
The first-named author was employed as a consultant during 2014–2017 in a US-based advisory and consulting firm whose clients included AustralianSuper. The first-named author contributes to executive education programmes focused on climate change and financial innovation at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at Oxford University that involve global financial companies and institutions including AustralianSuper.
ETHICS STATEMENT
As part of the research for this paper, the views of industry participants and academic experts in the field were elicited on the understanding that any insights were not attributed. Where appropriate, the research protocols involving human subjects at Oxford University were followed.
ENDNOTES
- 1 A highly useful categorisation of incomes policies for older persons is World Bank (2008). Australian superannuation policies are a combination of pillars 2 and 3 income support.
- 2 Workplace superannuation is a tax-preferred means of retirement saving from earned income. Promoted by the post-war (1945) Labor government and the Whitlam government’s inquiry (1976), it was rejected by the subsequent Liberal Fraser government (Nielson & Harris, 2010).
- 3 Related data provided by Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australian National Accounts: Finance and Wealth, ABS, viewed 18 September 2022 (https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/national-accounts/australian-national-accounts-finance-and-wealth/latest-release).
- 4 www.austrade.gov.au/news/economic-analysis/australias-pension-funds-shine-in-2021-global-rankings. See Moody’s 28 June 2022 recognising that the Australian superannuation sector “is the world’s fifth largest” and is growing rapidly https://www.moodys.com/credit-ratings/Australia-Government-of-credit-rating-75300.
- 5 Respondents knowledgeable of the issues facing the Labor government in 1989 have stressed the (then) importance of successfully dealing with immediate macroeconomic challenges given past government policies (Vines, 2023). Redressing poverty among the elderly was also a long-standing ambition of the Labor Party.
- 6 Martin (2018) and Venables (2020) examine the consequences for regional growth when specialisation in certain types of economic activity limit their capacity to adapt quickly to “trade and policy shocks.”
- 7 The Australian economy is sensitive to population growth and housing market speculation in the capital cities of eastern Australia and adjacent provincial cities. See the Financial Times (7 April 2022, p. 14) on the “Risks of Australia’s ‘house and holes’ economy are rising.”
- 8 Pensions & Investments, 3 October 2022, p. 27 reported that Macquarie Asset Management had approximately AU$773.9 billion under management of which a significant portion was held for US clients in their New York offices. It also reported that the CEO of the asset management business was relocating to New York to be closer to its “biggest business in terms of people and AuM.”
- 9 The 2019 Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry was critical of the behaviour of banks despite the scope of this regulatory regime. See also see the Wallis Inquiry (1997) and related reforms to Australian federal securities legislation.
- 10 Information in this paragraph and the following calculated from data from APRA www.apra.gov.au/annual-fund-level-superannuation-statistics
- 11 Dollar values are current Australian dollar values unless otherwise stated.
- 12 Padgett and Powell (2012, p. 16) referred to “hybrid organisations,” which, if successful, eventually detach from their hosts to form new organisations with their own networks. Padgett (2012, pp.122–24) observed that corporate forms are often “repurposed” or “refunctioned” to enhance efficiency and economic development system.
- 13 When AustralianSuper was established in Melbourne, it was sponsored by the ACTU and the Australian Industry Group (the peak employer group) with six shares each in the holding company.
- 14 MacKinnon et al. (2022, p. 644) noted that legitimation “is a prerequisite for emerging industries to overcome their ‘liability of newness’ … and gain social acceptance and compliance with relevant institutions.” It is arguable that the federal government used Labor’s historical commitment to workplace pensions as a means of legitimating something that critics believed was a cut in workers’ real incomes.
- 15 Calculated from data from APRA www.apra.gov.au/annual-fund-level-superannuation-statistics.
- 16 The Industry Commission (2016, p. 14) noted there are “significant economies of scale” in superannuation even if “there is little evidence that these cost savings (administrative expenses) have been systematically passed through to members in the form of lower fees.”
- 17 Industry funds initially poached talent from “local” banks and insurance companies despite cultural differences between these organisations and industry funds. Interviews with industry respondents suggest that middle to senior bank officials are less sympathetic with the mission of industry funds and are often unwilling to sacrifice salaries and bonuses in exchange for long-term opportunities in the sector.
- 18 By comparison, the largest US DC schemes are the federal government’s Federal Retirement Thrift scheme with US$775 billion and TIAA with approximately US$600 billion in assets. Otherwise, large DC schemes are corporate and have about US$20 billion in assets. See Pensions & Investments 14 February 2023, pp. 15–26.
- 19 The Australian superannuation industry is unusual by global standards in terms of its willingness to embrace growth through mergers and acquisitions and in the role of APRA in sustaining consolidation. This type of activity is in the United Kingdom and United States although encouraged a decade ago in the Netherlands. By contrast, the global asset management industry has become highly concentrated (Bebchuk & Hirst, 2019).
- 20 According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, in February 2022, 2.7 million people were registered in Queensland as employed, and 66,000 were registered as unemployed. See ABS #6202.0 Labour Force Statistics available at https://www.qgso.qld.gov.au/statistics/theme/economy/labour-employment/state.
- 21 In merging, ownership of the new fund was transferred to a board comprised of six union directors and six employer representative directors (three of each from the two funds) and three independent directors including an independent chair.
- 22 In July 2022, Westpac acquired the Brisbane-based SunCorp Bank for AU$3.2 billion, thereby giving the Sydney-based bank access to the burgeoning Queensland property market and moving it to 3rd among the four biggest Australian banks. Rationalisation of the banking business is sure to follow.
- 23 The Future Fund was established in Melbourne by the Liberal federal government in 2005 to absorb record foreign tax income produced by a resources boom. The Treasurer at the time sought to avoid a wage-price bubble by holding “excess” government earnings in a fund designed to meet federal government pension liabilities (Clark et al., 2013).
- 24 See https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/AUS/australia/population–growth–rate#:~:text=United%20Nations%20projections%20are%20also,a%200.98%25%20increase%20from%202020.
- 25 See Credit-Suisse (2022) Wealth Report which highlights the sensitivity of Australian wellbeing to stock market volatility https://www.credit-suisse.com/about-us/en/reports-research/global-wealth-report.html.
APPENDIX A
| Assets rank | Fund name | Total assets (AU$ billion) | Total members | Average balance AU$k | Fund type | Members rank | Head office |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | AustralianSuper | 244.9 | 2,468,216 | 94 | Industry | 1 | Melbourne |
| 2 | Aware Super | 153.6 | 1,123,049 | 131 | Public sector | 5 | Sydney |
| 3 | QSuper | 136.1 | 618,859 | 199 | Public sector | 13 | Brisbane |
| 4 | Unisuper | 102.6 | 497,959 | 183 | Industry | 14 | Melbourne |
| 5 | Sunsuper | 98.9 | 1,455,593 | 61 | Industry | 3 | Brisbane |
| 6 | Public Sector Superannuation Scheme | 94.2 | 218,293 | 431 | Public sector | 21 | Melbourne |
| 7 | Colonial First State FirstChoice Superannuation Trust | 89.9 | 672,825 | 133 | Retail | 12 | Sydney |
| 8 | Retirement Wrap | 86 | 844,823 | 101 | Retail | 9 | Sydney |
| 9 | MLC Super Fund | 84.9 | 956,471 | 86 | Retail | 6 | Melbourne |
| 10 | Military Superannuation & Benefits Fund No 1 | 68.7 | 181,086 | 379 | Public sector | 23 | Canberra |
| 11 | REST | 67 | 1,846,992 | 35 | Industry | 2 | Sydney |
| 12 | HESTA | 67 | 925,054 | 69 | Industry | 7 | Melbourne |
| 13 | Cbus | 66.7 | 778,510 | 81 | Industry | 10 | Melbourne |
| 14 | Super Directions Fund | 64.9 | 854,727 | 73 | Retail | 8 | Sydney |
| 15 | Hostplus | 64.5 | 1,303,176 | 47 | Industry | 4 | Melbourne |
| 16 | CSS Fund | 61.6 | 105,726 | 583 | Public sector | 33 | Canberra |
| 17 | Wealth Personal Superannuation and Pension Fund | 53.9 | 295,354 | 181 | Retail | 16 | Melbourne |
| 18 | Retirement Portfolio Service | 38.2 | 761,840 | 49 | Retail | 11 | Sydney |
| 19 | Equipsuper | 33.9 | 148,613 | 199 | Industry | 27 | Melbourne |
| 20 | IOOF Portfolio Service Superannuation Fund | 33.5 | 231,911 | 142 | Retail | 18 | Melbourne |
Open Research
DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
Data availability is not applicable.
