Insto roundup: Sweden's AP7 excludes Chinese firms; Temasek takes up SIA's undersubscribed bonds

Rest Super has hired Chris Drew as head of Australian equities from Australian Catholic Super Fund (ACSRF).

Drew will join the fund in Sydney next month and will report to Kiran Singh, the head of listed assets who had joined Rest in May. Rest stated in a statement that this is a newly created role.

He had been at ACSRF for six years as investment manager for public markets and was previously an investment manager and portfolio analyst at Sunsuper. 

Source: Rest Super

The highly debated 'Your Future, Your Super' reforms were passed on Thursday (June 17), although the most controversial parts of the bill were delayed until November.

The bill has been described as the biggest change to the superannuation industry since the 90s. Super funds have claimed that the reforms, which involve funds having to pass annual performance tests, have been too heavy-handed and will have negative repercussions for them and members.

Some funds have also opposed the 'stapling' part of the bill that would stick members with their original supers by default after they changed employment. Super Consumers Australia, the non-profit consumer advocate, however, has lauded the bill for weeding out underperforming funds.

Source: Australian Financial Review

Andrew Fairley, the chair of the merged Catholic Super and Equip Super, will leave his post at the end of the month, making way for deputy chair Danny Casey to take over.

Fairley has been chair of Equip Super for 12 years and saw the fund grow from A$4 billion ($3 billion) in funds to A$30 billion today, after the merger with Catholic Super. 

He will continue to have an active role in the industry, being the super industry representative on the board of the Australian Financial Complaints Authority. 

Source: Financial Standard

Chinese authorities have introduced a new rule that limits cash management products' use of leverage and from holding riskier securities. The rule is the latest in a slew of measures authorities have released in recent weeks to manage risks in the financial system.

These measures include restricting state firms' overseas commodities exposure, encouraging domestic banks to hold more foreign currencies, banning searches for crypto exchanges and preventing bullish equity-index targets.

Tycoon Richard Li's Hong Kong-headquartered life insurer FWD Group has applied for an initial public offering in the US with reported plans to raise $2 billion.

A confidential filing for the IPO has been made with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), according to a statement from FWD Group’s holdings company, PCGI Intermediate Holdings.

"The IPO is expected to take place after the SEC completes its review process, subject to market and other conditions," PCGI said, adding that it chose the U.S. over Hong Kong because the former market was the "largest and the most liquid in the world".

Source: Reuters

INDONESIA 

Indonesia’s newly established sovereign wealth fund, Indonesia Investment Authority (INA), said it plans to acquire several toll road assets from troubled state infrastructure developers. 

INA chief executive Ridha Wirakusumah said the fund was looking to acquire assets belonging to Waskita Karya, Hutama Karya, Wijaya Karya and Adhi Karya, as well as state-owned toll road operator Jasa Marga to allow them to pay their debt and free up capital for further toll road development.

Wirakusumah was speaking at a webinar held by the Indonesian Banking Development Institute in June. 

Source: Jakarta Post

KOREA

Korean institutional investors, including the Public Officials Benefit Association (Poba) and Yellow Umbrella Mutual Aid Fund, emerged as the largest group of liquidity providers under the US Federal Reserve’s Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF) programme introduced in 2020.

To utilise the funding facility, New York-based EMP Belstar had raised $580 million from nine Korean institutions last year, based on which it borrowed $2.6 billion from the Fed to buy US asset-backed securities (ABS), according to the US investment firm on June 17.

Source: The Korea Economic Daily

The Korean Teachers' Credit Union has committed $100 million to Chicago-based Harrison Street Real Estate Capital's new flagship fund that is aiming to raise $1.5 billion to invest in life science, healthcare service and senior housing facilities, according to a local newspaper report.

A number of Korean financial services companies look set to make a similar amount of commitment to the US investment firm's eighth flagship fund, the Maeil Business Newspaper reported last week.

Source: The Korea Economic Daily; Maeil Business Newspaper

Public Officials Benefit Association (Poba) is looking to hire a local asset manager for a foreign equity mandate of unspecified value.

The manager will be appointed for a one-year term, which could be extended to three years based on the investment performance, Poba says in its request for proposal on June 16.

Source: Asia Asset Management

Korean Venture Investment Company (KVIC), a South Korea government-backed fund of funds, has committed to invest in Abu Dhabi-based early-stage VC Shorooq Partners’ Bedaya Fund, the VC firm announced on Monday (June 21), saying that it is the first Middle Eastern fund to have received a commitment from KVIC since its inception in 2000.

Shorooq did not disclose the size of the investment, which is being made from KVIC’s foreign investment programme, which aims to provide capital to foreign VCs that can bring strategic value to the Korean venture ecosystem. The fund managers KVIC has invested in have a combined assets under management of $3 billion.