How we invest
Our investment purpose is to provide sustainable retirement outcomes for our members and their families.
We’re privileged to be a niche provider with a well-defined member base. As a leader in superannuation, we leverage our capability to implement an award-winning investment strategy. Our investment options have been carefully designed with an aim to efficiently and effectively maximise our members' retirement outcomes.
Our primary goal is to build, support and deliver better retirement outcomes for our members and their families. Our capability has been recognised with a number of investment awards for governance, innovation, responsiveness to global shocks, alternative investing and management of non-traditional (ESG) risks. Our competitive advantage has contributed to independent recognition as one of the best all-rounder medium-sized pension funds in the Asia–Pacific region.
We understand that one size doesn’t fit all, so we don’t follow the latest investment fads. We intensely scrutinise and continually diversify, always aiming for the ‘optimal’ investment risk, to protect, yet grow, our members' money. We have removed unnecessary complexity; our three pre-mixed options (plus ‘cash’) are designed to provide the optimal mix of assets for each stage of life.
Ways we protect and grow your clients' savings
The CSC Investment Team has been managing capital for more than three decades, experiencing many different types of economic environments. Our specialist team accesses world class experts sourcing untapped global opportunities for our members.
The right amount of risk
We aim to take an optimal amount of investment risk on our members' behalf. We invest in assets at the right price and quality to grow their super savings with the least amount of risk required.
The two sides of uncertainty—risk and opportunity
Risk control is paramount to our investment strategy. This is reflected in our ability to take risks that are expected to be rewarded and to manage them holistically.
We recognise there are two sides to uncertainty—the potential for losses on the downside, but also opportunity to grow wealth.
All risks (including non-financial risks) need to be understood and managed to try to ensure our members' savings continue to be invested in high quality, sustainable assets, which can generate income in retirement.
We believe the key is not just identifying risks, but doing something about them—such as measuring then managing by pricing, mitigating, reducing or avoiding them.
We aim to convert risk into an opportunity to add value to our members' retirement savings, or preserve the value of their savings by reducing potential losses.
Reducing exposure to significant losses
Our strategy is to aim for fewer or smaller losses when markets are falling, but still capture a large proportion of the gains when markets are rising strongly. We focus on avoiding significant market downturns because losses can have greater impact on long term wealth when compared to gains. The larger the loss, the greater the subsequent gain required to restore value.
Balanced option vs peers 10 years to 31 December 2023
For example, if markets fell by 20%, a portfolio of $100 will fall to $80 and markets would need to rise by 25% to restore the original value of $100.
The ideal sweet spot between purchasing power and agility
As a mid-scale fund we strike the right balance between purchasing power and agility—big enough to realise the cost and opportunity benefits of a large-scale investor, but not so it limits what we can invest in.
We seek to leverage our mid-range scale to maximise long-term benefits for our members. Our scale means that we can:
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access a full range of domestic and international assets and strategies.
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manage costs to ensure our members get value for money.
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be nimble with risk management to ensure members' savings are protected in volatile and uncertain environments. We aim to re-allocate the best relative returns throughout most cycles.
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remain agile enough to access smaller-scale, active management of different market segments.
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access a broad universe of investment opportunities, including both listed and unlisted assets, across most investment risk factors.
"The focus on 'bigger is better' in funds under management is not necessarily true. If you stick to your investor DNA, and understand what your competitive advantages are, there are opportunities to be excellent, and to be very competitive against much bigger funds."
Alison Tarditi, Chief Investment Officer
First-mover advantages
We proactively seize new opportunities to invest first in high-quality assets well before others do. We hunt for untapped opportunities so our members can enjoy early mover advantages and realise profits before others crowd in.
Always planning for the future
Instead of forecasting macroeconomic outcomes, we analyse the performance of our portfolio under multiple scenarios, to find vulnerabilities and proactively address them. It is this proactive consideration of uncertainty, combined with our comprehensive stress-testing and scenario-based analysis that enables us to confidently hunt for innovative investments—opportunities that align to the best financial interests of our members.
Our investment team
Our investment experts build genuine quality investment portfolios to reliably grow super over the long term, and assist members recover from any setbacks. We believe that investing should be about achieving our members' goals and serving them with the best team and experience available. What makes our Investment Team unique:
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Aligned to our members
Senior members of the CSC Investment team have their superannuation savings invested alongside our members' savings in CSC investment options.
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A wealth and depth of experience
The entire team has deep experience in financial markets roles. Our Senior Investment Managers have 26 years of experience on average.
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International relationships
Not only are our consultants known globally for their areas of specialty, we have access to a global network of knowledge, expertise and resources.
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Robust leadership
Our Chief Investment Officer (CIO) was co-Chair of the World Economic Forum Global Future Council on Long-term Investing from 2016–2020. This role reflected the proactive approach CSC took to responsible investing and including ESG risks in our whole of portfolio risk assessment. She is also a member of the Chartered Financial Analysts Institute (CFA) Future of Finance Advisory Council.
For more information about our external investment managers, see Our investment managers.