During last Friday’s bombshell public hearing of the standing committee on economics, Mr Wilson also grilled ASIC on whether it would investigate a number of cases of super fund executives potentially misusing their positions to gain advantage during a period of heightened volatility.
“Earlier in the year there was a bottoming-out of the Australian stock exchange as a consequence of COVID-19, then there was a delayed period where in many cases super funds had unlisted assets for revaluation and that it enabled people to move money from within funds based on knowledge or inside information to potentially profit,” Mr Wilson said.
“This seems to me to be quasi-insider trading.”
Mr Wilson noted that his demands for information on the switching behaviour of executives and trustees had mostly fallen on deaf ears, but acknowledged that one fund – Care Super – took steps to prevent conflicts through a “blackout period” while keeping investment choices under wraps.
“UniSuper has admitted that one member who is also an executive of the fund had one or more switch requests processed during the high and low periods of their fund to a value of $445,368,” Mr Wilson said, noting that AustralianSuper had also seen one of its executives do a transaction during the period.
Cbus also refused to provide information, while NGS Super admitted that three trustees did “major transactions” during the period. Similar behaviour occurred at Rest.
“You can see the pattern of behaviour,” Mr Wilson said.
“You have people who are trustees or managers of funds transacting huge sums of money within a defined period where it’s known that the stock market may not have reached bottom – we have to concede that – but has dropped considerably while they haven’t revalued their unlisted assets and therefore may be able to secure a benefit.”
Commissioner Danielle Press said that ASIC would take the examples away and determine whether they were worth investigating.
I think it’s fair to call out industry funds by government if they agree to a Federal ICAC. Throwing stones in glass houses etc.
IMAGINE IF CREDLIN TURNED HER ATTENTION TO THIS & PLAYED IT OUT DAILY ON THE WAR ON FINANCIAL PLANNERS & THE ISF RORT. ALL PROFITS GO TO ………
Great to see FASEA Code of Ethics extends to Industry Super Fund Executives.
Tim Wilson is really doing some great work in this space. Thanks Tim….its nice to finally see some serious investigation happening in the industry superfund space. Well overdue.
Now, its time they took the blindfold off and had a proper look into the culture at ASIC of attacking financial advisers.
If only Tim Wilson was as concerned about ‘rorting’ within the Government in which he’s a member as he is with these issues at industry super or Australia Post. Seems that the LNP are only interested in rorting that they’re not involved with….the old line about “it’s only a rort if you’re not involved” rings true…
All of these union super scams and rorts and lies and deception gradually being exposed by Tim Wilson should have been properly investigated by ASIC and the Royal Commission.
We need a Royal Commission into why ASIC & Hayne turned a blind eye to the massive amounts of misconduct by union super funds.
Excellent analysis. Why stop there. There needs to be a complete investigation into how the valuations are arrived at when these direct investments are purchased, and who is getting a cut out of it. Totally opaque.
Yes Tim ASIC should do a proper look.
And Purple poker dot Pigs will fly all over Canberra when ASIC does a proper look.
[b]REGULATORY CAPTURE CORRUTPTION AT ITS WORST – ASIC & INDUSTRY SUPER !!!!!!![/b][b][/b]
Hopefully Tim’s ongoing vigilance with these matters continues, doesn’t escape his parliamentary peers and their is a realisation that the industry fund sector has significant flaws that need to be corrected. Well done Tim.
I hope your right because the Liberal have been asleep to this issue for a serious amount of time and I for one will be voting elsewhere.