Cbus bolsters team

Cbus Super has strengthened its asset allocation team with two new hires from QIC and AustralianSuper.

Divya Jain joins as a portfolio strategist from AustralianSuper's fixed income, credit and currency team.

Most recently, she covered active strategies across emerging market currencies and fixed income.

Nathan Cotton joins the team as a senior analyst, focussing on macroeconomic and market analysis.

Cotton landed from QIC where he worked as a senior economist for six years.

Earlier he worked as an economist at the Reserve Bank of Australia and done a stint at the Queensland Treasury.

Cbus Super's deputy investment chief Brett Chatfield said the addition of Jain and Cotton to the asset allocation team continues the build-out of internal resources to provide skills and experience aimed at the ongoing enhancement of the fund's strategic and dynamic asset allocation processes.

"The ongoing, general, focus to bring resources in-house where the business case is strong has paid dividends with the Cbus team now managing 37.6 per cent of the portfolio in-house and in hybrid strategies, helping to save members more than $500 million in investment fees since 2017."
Speaking about the fund's internalisation strategy, Chatfield noted that benefits went far beyond the cost savings.

"We see a whole range of benefits, including greater insights for our asset allocation process, sharpening our external manager selection, highly efficient liquidity and exposure management, extensive incorporation of responsible investing principles to drive long-term sustainable returns, and more granular risk and performance analytics," he continued.