Australia Pension Giants Seeking US Assets Worry About Trump
On a Monday morning in February in Washington, more than a dozen Australian pension executives showed why everyone in the US with a big project to fund wants to meet them. 'We have capital to invest in the United States—that was the purpose, that was the key message,' says Sam Sicilia, chief investment officer of the A$115 billion ($73 billion) pension fund Hostplus, after returning from the Australian Super Summit. 'We've exhausted our home country. We come to you wanting to invest money in the United States.' The executives were joined at the Australian Embassy by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers.
Industry analysis released to coincide with their arrival for the roadshow showed that Australia's A$4.2 trillion workplace-based pension system—known locally as superannuation or super funds—has about $400 billion invested in the US. By 2035 that number is projected to climb to $1 trillion. Australia is also on track to surpass Canada and the UK to become the world's second-largest retirement system by 2031, said the report commissioned by IFM Investors Pty Ltd., a global asset manager owned by more than a dozen pension funds. 'The fact that Australia is coming out into the world with such a powerful amount of capital means you have to be taken seriously, and people are going to cultivate that,' says Henry Cornell, founder and senior partner of private investment firm Cornell Capital LLC. 'And I think that creates a huge opportunity for Australia.'
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