If you can move to a SMSF you should, otherwise if you are with an "industry super fund", I wouldn't believe Bernie that they are there to benefit the members, they are there to benefit the union parasites who have just loved this gravy train of legislated robbery where they can take their fees.
In any case, move your money if it is associated with any of these union blood suckers.
I have been doing a bit of digging around on the issue of the governance of industry super funds and the misuse of members’ funds. I came across this amazing fact: the CEO of one of the industry super funds attended and spoke at the recent UN Climate Summit held in New York. I wonder whether the members of HESTA funded this trip. How you might ask did I stumble across the fact. From the Twitter feed of Sharan Burrow (remember her: ex-ACTU, now in some international trade union position based in Brussels, now deeply green – ‘there are no jobs on a dead planet’ etc.) Here are two of her entries:
Anne-Marie Corboy only businesswomen speaking at UN Climate Summit
Anne-Marie Corboy supporting carbon price. Champion of Australian health and responsible pension funds.
This got me wondering about Anne-Marie. It turns out that the CEO of HESTA was once upon a time a primary school teacher who moved into education unions. And now she is the CEO of HESTA. Her remuneration is specifically not disclosed in the latest HESTA annual report; she is presumably the executive in the $500,000 to $600,000 range.
The chair of HESTA, however, is paid $105,000 per year and there are 17 trustees (no, I am not making this up), costing the HESTA members over $600,000 per year. It includes the obligatory rep from the ACTU.
But what really caught me up was the amazing array of related party interests:
HESTA has a 30 per cent share in asset consultants, Frontier Investments, and HESTA paid Frontier $2,17 million in fees. And wait for it, the chair of HESTA is a director of Frontier Investments, for which she is paid a fee.
HESTA owns 16 per cent of Industry Super Holdings which includes subsidiaries. Industry Funds Management looks after $4 billion of HESTA’s investment pool.
HESTA owns 16 per cent of ME Bank and HESTA had $308 million in cash held with ME Bank.
HESTA’s chair is the partner of Garry Weaven who is on the board of ISH, ME Bank and Chair of IFM.
Anne-Marie Corboy, CEO of HESTA, is director of Industry Super Network, a subsidiary of ISH.
To tell you the truth, all this is truly gob-smacking. These sorts of interrelations would never be countenanced in the listed company space. It turns out that Anne-Marie is leaving the organisation (see below).
Anne-Marie to bow out from HESTA
September 6, 2014
One of Australia’s longest-serving industry fund chief executives, Anne-Marie Corboy, has announced her intention to step down from the $29 billion HESTA at the end of February next year. Having been appointed to her role in 1998, she said in a release last Friday, she was now hoping to develop a portfolio of non-executive directorships, although she was not ruling out another executive role or project work.
She will, in fact, not start a previously announced directorship of the Utilities Trust of Australia until March next year. She will be HESTA’s representative on that board. She is currently also on the boards of Industry Super Australia, the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors and an alternate director on ISPT. She has been a director of several high-profile boards in the past, too, including the MCG Trust, the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Victorian Superannuation Board, Industry Fund Services and State Superannuation Board.
HESTA, which operates in the health and community services sector, currently has about 785,000 members, compared with 350,000 members 16 years ago. Assets have increased at a much faster rate, of course, with the current $29 billion compared to $1.4 billion in 1998. Staff size has also increased, from 15 to 118 in the same timeframe. Angela Emslie, the chair, said that Corboy left the fund in a very strong position for the next stage of its development.
She noted in Friday’s statement: “Anne-Marie’s exceptional leadership of HESTA over the past 16 years has created an organisation of very high standing with its members, employers, staff, service providers and other stakeholders. She has led a first class culture dedicated to providing outstanding member benefits which are relevant to the needs of people in the health and community services sector, the vast majority of them women…”
Emslie, who has been a trustee director of several industry funds, is also active in the sector as a founding director, since 2004, of the Lime Management Group, which provides consulting services to health and community services operations. She became independent chair of HESTA last year.
In terms of a successor, the statement said: “The HESTA Board will commence appropriate processes to fill the vacancy.” Unlike many funds, HESTA has a deputy chief executive, Debby Blakey, who has been with the fund since 2008 running the member advice area, and then deputy chief executive in 2012.