78: ART's Ian Patrick - Merger, Internalisation and Decarbonisation

[i3] Institutional Investment Podcast

In episode 78 of the [i3] Podcast, we speak with Ian Patrick, Chief Investment Officer at the Australian Retirement Trust. We delve into the latest developments of the merger between legacy funds Sunsuper and Qsuper, we discussed inhouse asset management and the impact of decarbonisation. Enjoy the show! Overview of Podcast with Ian Patrick, CIO of the Australian Retirement Trust 01:00 Coming to Australia 03:00 JANA, from consultant to CEO 04:00 Becoming CIO; focusing on a single investment challenge 06:00 What is left in the merger with QSuper? 08:00 We are working towards an ART culture, not two legacy cultures, but that takes time 10:00 Harmonising the portfolios and strategies 13:00 Aligning QSuper’s risk balanced strategy with Sunsuper’s peer aware strategy 16:00 Your Future, Your Super: failing the performance test is almost an existential question 17:30 Asking us all to be held accountable on some measure of performance is a no brainer 19:00 The impact of scale 20:30 The diseconomies of scale are significantly outweighed by the benefits 23:00 In a very large fund, the ability of a CIO to directly influence investment decisions other than through team governance is lost 24:00 The ability to take on illiquidity in Australia is constrained by the 30-day rule and so Australian funds will not be able to fully embrace the Canadian model 25:30 Internalisation: never say never 30:00 There are strategic functions that are critical to internalise 32:00 Pandemic: what stood out is that all strategies correlated poorly; there was no diversifying correlation from alpha in any asset class. It did cause us to reevaluate the role of sovereign bonds in the portfolio 35:00 The energy transition, decarbonisation and portfolio skews