It takes a lot to shock someone in the superannuation industry these days, but Jeremy Cooper did the trick with his address to the ASFA luncheon in Sydney last month.
The moment you could actually hear the jaws drop was when the ASIC deputy chairman, who’s now running Chris Bowen’s ‘super review’, lumped in those long-suffering funds managers with…real estate agents. And worse, investment bankers.Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;}
John Hamer, the Australian head of Nicholas Applegate, the San Diego-based equities and bond manager, got the phone call about 30 minutes before he was to have an important meeting with his largest client, AMP. Both his sales office in Sydney and the client service office in Melbourne were to be closed with just a few days notice. Hamer went through with the meeting and presented the company line: the product was a good one and was unaffected by the withdrawal of the Australian presence.

The Superannuation Guarantee:
should it be used as a tool of economic policy?
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Managing counterparty risk and transitions in a time of uncertainty