share this article!

Ian Silk, the CEO of AustralianSuper, the country’s largest pension fund, speaks at a Reuters Newsmaker event in Sydney, Australia, on July 27, 2017. Steven Saphore/REUTERS (Reuters) – SYDNEY, July 13 (Reuters) – On Tuesday, AustralianSuper announced that Ian Silk, the fund’s chief executive officer, will step down and be replaced by Paul Schroder, the head of risk and a former union boss. Silk, who supervised AustralianSuper’s rise from handling A$21 billion in workers’ savings to over A$225 billion over the previous 15 years, had recently informed the board of his plans, according to a statement from the pension fund. Silk also played a crucial part in the 2018 Royal Commission probe into financial sector corruption, when he represented Australia’s retirement fund industry. [https://reut.rs/2U1yxUA] Schroder, who has served as the fund’s chief risk officer since 2019, was picked unanimously by the board and will take over as CEO “later this year,” according to the fund. “Paul is uniquely qualified to lead the Fund into its next phase, as it transitions to a profit-for-membership model. In the next five years, a $500 billion superannuation fund will be established that will benefit members by leveraging the organization’s size “Silk remarked. The investigation discovered widespread corruption among “for-profit” funds, with several admitting to extracting “fees for no service” from members, including from deceased people’s accounts. Workers went to relatively problem-free “industry” funds, such as AustralianSuper, which are connected with worker’s unions but accessible to anyone to join, as a result of the scandal. This has fueled the rapid rise of industry funds like AustralianSuper into behemoth investors with growing clout to influence business policies, launch takeover bids for Australian firms, and potentially serve as activist shareholders. Schroder was the National Secretary of the Finance Sector Union of Australia until joining AustralianSuper in 2007. (1 Australian dollar = 1.3335 dollars) Paulina Duran contributed reporting from Sydney, while Ana Nicolaci da Costa edited the piece. The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles are our standards./nRead More

share this article!