CSC has pro-actively been divesting from Russian investments

The Federal Government today asked all Australian superannuation funds to divest from Russian assets.

Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation can confirm that for the weeks prior to today’s Government announcement it has been pro-actively reducing its exposure in Russia and made no new Russian or Belarussian investments.

Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation pro-actively responded to rising risks in the region by instructing all direct equity and debt investment managers to not acquire any Russian assets on either the primary or secondary market by 25 February 2022. This was ahead of the announcement of formal sanctions and the closure of markets on which these assets can be traded.

CSC currently has only a small residual $9.5 million invested in Russian assets, equivalent to 0.02% of our total funds under management as at 1 March 2022. The majority of these holdings are the assets that were included in the Australian superannuation regulator’s international share benchmark (MSCI)¹.

CSC’s exposure today is lower than the exposure we had prior to 22 February 2022 (when it was 0.18% of our total funds under management) due to a combination of an active selling of our exposures ahead of the closure in markets and some price falls.

Markets are now effectively closed for trading Russian assets. We will monitor that situation to enable residual exit when market conditions permit.

As our customers’ superannuation provider, we will continue to manage risks pro-actively and in our customers’ best financial interests. At all times CSC has implemented all sanctions and will continue to comply with any additional measures, consistent with our divestment policy.

Media contact: Damon Whittock, CSC Senior Manager Corporate Affairs; ph. 02 6275 7108; email. damon.whittock@csc.gov.au

^{[1] APRA’s Your Future Your Super annual performance test assesses superannuation funds against specific benchmarks. For international shares, the benchmark is MSCI All Country World ex Australia Index with Special Tax. The equity index provider MSCI has announced that based on Russia being now non-investible due to inability to trade Russian domiciled securities, it is removing Russia from its equity index effective from 9th March 2022. These holdings will exit the index at an effectively zero price.}