IFM has made the comments in a letter sent to the House of Representatives standing committee on economics, responding to requests in November to issue responses to committee queries.
As detailed in the letter sent on 17 December, IFM noted it is the “only funds manager called to appear before this inquiry” into the superannuation sector, having fronted the committee twice over a year, while its parent company Industry Super Holdings appeared once.
“None of IFM’s competitors have been called before the inquiry (Macquarie appeared in its capacity as a bank, not for its funds management business),” IFM wrote.
The group also said it had responded to almost 100 questions in writing from the committee, all but three of which were from committee chair and Liberal MP Tim Wilson.
“IFM has no objection to assisting the committee in its oversight of the financial services sector and is supportive of the role of the Parliament in this endeavour,” the letter stated.
“However, this oversight should not place one sector or institution at a competitive or commercial disadvantage to others.”
IFM has previously faced scrutiny around its executive remuneration from the committee as well as other figures in the government, having been criticised by Mr Wilson and Financial Services Minister Jane Hume as being too opaque.
The matter has been further fired up by accounts of former executive director Frederic Michel-Verdier receiving a severance package that included bonuses of up to £20 million (around $36 million worth) after he was at the centre of a lawsuit where he was accused of sexually harassing former infrastructure analyst Nathalie Abildgaard.
But during his last appearance before the committee on 6 November, IFM chief executive David Neal defended the company’s choice to not publicly disclose wages.
Mr Wilson had also asked if the company could reveal how many non-disclosure agreements it had in the past decade related to human resources issues or sexual harassment, to which it declined to answer.
“The number of such agreements is not publicly available and has not been sought from any other fund manager,” IFM responded to the question on notice.
“Disclosure of this information could therefore put IFM at a commercial disadvantage.”
IFM further protested Mr Wilson asking if its chair, Greg Combet, who is also the chair of Industry Super Australia and Industry Super Holdings (ISH), would appear before the committee to represent the fund manager.
“IFM has fully co-operated with this inquiry for over 12 months, sending three witnesses – its current chief executive, its former chief executive and its global head of infrastructure – to appear before the inquiry. Furthermore, IFM’s deputy chief executive has appeared on behalf of ISH,” its letter stated.
“To IFM’s knowledge, the committee is not seeking to call the chairs of any other fund managers before it, nor has any other non-operational holding company of a financial institution been called.”
The company also declined to answer a question around how much of its funds under management, which increased by around $20 billion from the previous financial year to $160 billion.
Mr Wilson had issued a question asking how much of the funds had come from Australian super funds – to which IFM stated it could not provide further clarity for fear of identifying individual clients or transactions, placing the firm at a competitive disadvantage and regulatory risk.
But when he appeared before the committee on 6 November, Mr Neal estimated a little under half of the company’s FUM had come from super funds.
The union super organisations are right to say they have received more than fair share of scrutiny from the parliamentary committee.
But it’s only happening because they have been given a free pass for years by biased regulators like ASIC and ACCC. Hopefully the parliamentary committee will soon shift its attention to the bigger issue of misuse of government power by the union aligned cabal who dominate those regulators.
received a $36,000,000.00 severance package…$36 million mmm.. see how the pub test works with that one- all-profit to members my ar#$
from IFM website – Established by all-profit-to-members Australian superannuation funds, IFM Investors focuses on delivering superior net investment returns to members of superannuation and pension funds – [and maybe superior returns to staff]
These IFM/ISA/Union scumbags try to make a virtue out of their sins, and then publicly attempt take the moral high ground on false virtue signalling and utter BS.
Victimisation? Lucky I have no political inclinations or I would aim to ban this form of institutional corruption, cronyism and fee rorting (which is nothing compared to what I would do to them if I was a dictator with ultimate power 🙂
Consider it a catch up for the easy time industry funds had with Hayne hearings. You lot got preferential light touch treatment – there is no difference between industry super fund behavior than any retail fund. Mr Silk was allowed to laugh away the members funds spent on the Fox Henhouse adverts on Sky TV
I rest my case.