Qantas Super appoints deputy investment chief

Qantas Super - the Mascot-based fund for employees of Australia's national air carrier - has promoted Chris Grogan to deputy chief investment officer and head of defensive assets

Grogan has been with Qantas Super since July 2012 and was most recently the manager of investments.

He joined the fund from WorkCover New South Wales - the statutory body for workers' compensation - where he was responsible for managing the $12 billion investment portfolio.

The mid-sized asset owner is one of Australia's largest corporate superannuation funds, with over 30,000 members and more than $9 billion in funds under management.

At Qantas Super's annual general meeting in February, investment chief Andrew Spence discussed the competitive advantages of boutique funds.

"Qantas super is a small mid-sized fund and we're able to access investment opportunities that many of the larger funds just can't get access to," he told members.

"We believe our competitive advantages are that we are nimble and can access niche capacity-constrained opportunities with attractive risk-return profiles over the medium term.

"These opportunities include private equity, infrastructure, and other alternatives such as agriculture, timberland and the like. So quite a diversity in terms of the asset allocation.

"The key drivers of our outperformance in the 12 months to 30 June 2022. Our energy, private equity and timberland assets -  all things that we've owned for many years -  hit a period where they just sort of matured and the market environment was very favourable."

The investment chief said Qantas Super's growth option was one of only three funds to achieve a positive return for the 2022 financial year.