AustralianSuper appoints head of real assets

AustralianSuper will merge its infrastructure and property teams into one global real asset team, which will be led by Nik Kemp.

Kemp, who previously served as the fund's head of infrastructure, will report to the head of mid risk Jason Peasley.

The $300 billion superannuation giant said the fusion of the two teams recognises the increasingly close relationship of the two asset classes, the need to drive global economies of scale and harness skills across the whole value chain.

AustralianSuper plans to double the size of its mid-risk portfolio by 2030 to more than $150 billion.

Mirroring this staff change, the head of European property, Paul Clark, will become head of European real assets, while the head of American Infrastructure, Derek Chu, will become acting head of American real assets until the property part of the US strategy is finalised.

The super fund also said it plans to recruit a new head of Australian real assets and a head of strategic opportunities.

In other changes, senior investment director (Infrastructure), Monica Ryu, has been appointed head of asset management in the new real assets team, with a focus on driving value creation in ownership.

Kemp said the new structure better aligns with the fund's objective to source large-scale transactions as well as build real asset platforms, rather than developing individual assets.

"By bringing the expertise and knowledge of the two asset classes together, we can maximise the best of both to support global deal origination and continue to drive value creation in ownership for fund members," he said.

The new head of global real assets stated that by combining the teams, AustralianSuper can take a more research and sector-led approach to investing, aligned to its broader one portfolio approach.

"Aligned to our growing size, we need to find ways to simultaneously invest with a global portfolio mindset and empower our experienced teams in local markets to be agile in pursuit of the best global investment opportunities for members," Peasley added.

"Over recent years, we have seen the importance of sector selection in driving performance across both property and infrastructure as well as a blurring of investment opportunity classification across the two asset classes, which we expect to only increase in the future.

"We have ambitious investment performance objectives for both property and infrastructure and have been aligning our asset class strategies to invest in operating businesses and platforms which have the dedicated talent and opportunity to create more value across the real assets spectrum."

The fund is forecast to more than double member assets by 2030 - from $300 billion to more than $700 billion.