POWERED BY MOMENTUM MEDIA
Ambitious plans for Mercer as merger doubles FUM
The acquisition of BT Super with Mercer will help advance Mercer on its mission to be the best superannuation fund in the market while members could see more than 25% fee reduction.
It was announced last week that Westpac and BT Funds Management had entered into a heads of agreement to merge BT’s personal and corporate superannuation fund with Mercer Super Trust, subject to regulatory approval.
Speaking to Money Management, Tim Barber, head of Mercer Super, said he hoped the merger would bring about greater scale, fee reductions and improved service for members.
He said: “This creates a new benchmark for super funds in Australia and our ambition is to be the very best superannuation fund in the market. This adds to our global scale and makes our funds under management grow from $30 billion to $65 billion.
“This provides a platform to do things much better for our members and we’re focused on doing the transition period really well, that’s the job of both teams over the coming months. The scale allows us to improve our offering for members and provide a number of improvements for them to be the very best fund in the market.”
Barber said 400 colleagues would be moving from BT Super to Mercer which would enable Mercer to have an expanded investment offering.
The scale would also allow Mercer to make fee reductions with most members seeing a fee cut of 25% or more from the first half of next year.
BT Super chair, Gai McGrath, said: “Mercer, whose multi-manager funds manage more than $500 billion in assets globally, has been a retirement and investment specialist in Australia for more than 40 years. They are well placed to support our BT Super members and participating employers into the future”.
AUTHOR
Laura Dew
Laura Dew is editor at Super Review. Prior to joining SR, she spent five years working at Investment Week in the UK covering asset and wealth management.
Recommended for you
The rollout of further tariffs in the US from August is expected to decrease economic growth in the US in the longer term, AMP and asset managers warn.
The Australian Retirement Trust is adopting a “healthy level of conservatism” towards the US as the end of the 90-day tariff pause approaches, with “anything possible”.
Uncertainty around tariffs and subdued growth may lead to some short-term constraints in relation to the private credit market, the fund manager has said.
Just three active asset managers are expected to attract net inflows over the coming year, according to Morningstar, with those specialising in fixed income or private markets best positioned to benefit.
TOP PERFORMING FUNDS
ACS FIXED INT - AUSTRALIA/GLOBAL BOND
Fund name
3y(%)pa
1
DomaCom 465 Calder Road Calder
99.46 3 y p.a(%)
2
DomaCom DFS Mortgage
95.46 3 y p.a(%)
3
Global X 21Shares Bitcoin ETF
78.55 3 y p.a(%)
4
BetaShares Crypto Innovators ETF
50.39 3 y p.a(%)
5
Global X GlobalX FANG+ ETF
47.50 3 y p.a(%)
