Page 22 - Print21 Magazine May-June 2022

Superannuation
Size matters
In a big change for our retirement savings the industry’s super fund Media Super is now part of the much larger Cbus. Print21 editor Wayne Robinson asks Cbus CEO Justin Arter what the merger means.
right move for their members, and it is a case of first in best dressed.”
The rollover for Media Super into Cbus, which took place in early April, was a textbook success, according to Arter. He says, “We had done a lot
of scenario analyses of what could
go wrong, and the fact that it went perfectly was testament actually to good preparation. So that's the first thing to say, the actual rollover has been completed with no issues.”
Media Super members are now enrolled in Cbus products, but
those products are effectively white labelled, with Media Super members still seeing Media Super branding on what are Cbus products. Cbus has added a couple of products that Media Super had, the index fund for instance, which is a kind of cheap and cheerful product.
One of the strategies that the Media Super trustees wanted in a merger was a retention of the Media Super brand, and Arter and his team have obliged. Media Super has become an integral part of the print industry, of course through looking after the retirement funds of printers, but it has over recent years been committed to the wellbeing of the industry, often through sponsorships of awards, particularly for young people, and through sponsorship of events, such as the Women in Print breakfasts and the Print2Parliament printers meet the pollies evening.
Preservation of brand
Arter says, “Preservation of the brand was key to the trustees, and we recognise the benefits of that. If you come to our premises you will see Media Super on the glass window. We fully embrace the concept.”
The old Media Super board has been disbanded, but a new joint advisory committee has been set up to directly look after the interests of printers and print industry, and it reports directly to the top Cbus board. It is this committee that will recommend to Cbus where it should ... /continued on page 24
April saw a momentous change for print people and the print industry, as the relatively small Media Super fund – of which many print people are members, and which counted print as its largest membership base – merged into the supersize Cbus Super. The 70,000 members in Media Super are now part of 850,000 members in the combined fund. The $7bn in Media Super funds is now part of the $70bn Cbus fund, one of the biggest in the country.
For print people and the print industry used to dealing with a bespoke fund focused on the print industry it is a big change.
First things first though, Media Super has generated stellar returns for its members, with an average return since inception in its MySuper product of 8.4 per cent, one of the top performing funds. However, the good news for Media Super members who now find themselves part of Cbus
is that Cbus has done even better, recording an average of 9.25 per cent, putting it very close to the top of the returns tree. Averages are important, super is a long-term project, yearly returns can be all over the place. For instance, Cbus last year achieved 19.3 per cent, a huge number, while this year results could be mixed with the current volatility in global markets.
Compounding the key
A 9.25 per cent average return
means your retirement savings effectively double every five or six years. Compounding is the key to financial growth, and the higher the annual rate the bigger the growth, the difference between a nine per cent average return and a six per cent average return over 30 years is huge.
From the track record alone former Media Super members can have as much assurance as is possible in the financial world that their retirement savings are well placed in Cbus.
The imperative for Media Super to merge into Cbus came not from the government, as many think, as it is the government that wants to
22 Print21 MAY/JUNE 2022
see the number of Super industry funds slimmed right down, but from the Media Super board. Justin Arter is the CEO of Cbus, and the person who has presided over the merger.
He says, “The trustees of Media
Super were not reacting to some government directive or situation. They saw the wind changing, they knew that smaller funds would face an increasing struggle to compete and generate the returns that larger funds are capable of. They said we can't
go on like this. If we continue going like this, our returns might not be so good. Our cost profile will go up.
“The trustees ought to be congratulated for recognising the changing landscape, they have
put their members ahead of what has proved to be an extraordinary number of funds who are now reaching out to us, saying please would you consider merging with us.
“It takes take courage for a board of trustees to recognise that for the future one might be better off in the hands of someone else. I actually salute them for doing it.”
So Media Super effectively put out dance cards to the larger funds, chose three to waltz with, before settling on one of those, the one it was best suited to, Cbus, as its permanent dance partner. Media Super is also the first smaller fund to merge into Cbus, for several decades at least, Arter says, “They are the first but
are unlikely to be the last. However, kudos to the trustees, they made the
Virtues of size: Justin Arter, CEO, Cbus
Average annual return MySuper
9.25%
Cbus
8.4%
Media Super