{"id":186097,"date":"2025-06-15T10:18:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-15T10:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/186097\/"},"modified":"2025-06-15T10:18:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-15T10:18:10","slug":"australian-pension-fund-aware-super-cites-significant-opportunities-in-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/186097\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian pension fund Aware Super cites \u2018significant\u2019 opportunities in Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stay informed with free updates<\/p>\n

Simply sign up to the Pensions industry myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n

One of Australia\u2019s largest pension funds is ahead of schedule with its plans to invest billions in the UK and Europe, citing attractive investment opportunities, while the US outlook has become more uncertain.<\/p>\n

Deanne Stewart, chief executive of Aware Super, which manages A$190bn ($124bn) for more than 1.1mn savers, said she saw a \u201creally significant opportunity for Europe and the UK\u201d,\u2009and while there were trade challenges with the US \u201cif you have a look at what\u2019s going on with capital flows\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009you can see where the marginal dollar has been flowing\u201d.<\/p>\n

Aware Super opened its first overseas office in London in November 2023 and announced it would invest A$10bn (\u00a35.25bn) in the UK and Europe over a five-year period.<\/p>\n

Eighteen months later, it has already met its interim two-year target of having A$3.5bn invested, thanks to partnerships with UK energy supplier Octopus Energy, fibre platform euNetworks and a big bet <\/a>on central London offices.<\/p>\n

Damian Graham, Aware Super\u2019s chief investment officer, said the investment pipeline in the UK and Europe was strong, particularly in businesses linked to the energy transition. The region provides \u201ca more stable environment for longer term decisions\u201d in this area than the US, he added, as decarbonisation has become highly politicised there. <\/p>\n

\"DamianAware Super\u2019s Damian Graham on US investment prospects: \u2018There\u2019s a question mark over how much goes there into the medium and long term\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009I do think there will be a rebalancing\u2019 \u00a9 Kyle Grillot\/Bloomberg<\/p>\n

Aware Super\u2019s bet on European assets comes as some big investors<\/a> have started to shift away from US markets in response to Donald Trump\u2019s erratic trade policies and worries about the country\u2019s increasing debt pile. The US dollar fell to a three-year low against a basket of currencies this week.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s landmark \u201cbig, beautiful\u201d budget bill has created further uncertainty, with proposals for new taxes targeting foreign investors in the US. Graham said he was \u201cvery very focused on\u201d understanding the potential impact on the fund, which could amount to tens of millions of dollars.<\/p>\n

He said that while the US would remain a \u201clarge and important market\u201d for Aware Super and other major pension funds, \u201cthere\u2019s a question mark over how much goes there into the medium and long term\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009I do think there will be a rebalancing\u201d.<\/p>\n

Aware Super\u2019s optimism about European assets comes as private capital group Blackstone prepares to significantly increase its investments across the region, betting that economic reforms will help revive growth.<\/p>\n

The group with $1.2tn in assets said this week it would aim to invest \u201cat least $500bn\u201d in Europe in the coming decade<\/a>, highlighting Germany\u2019s decision to relax its borrowing rules to finance infrastructure and defence investment as a positive change.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Other pension funds have turned to Europe in recent months.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are starting to see a lot of interesting things in European private equity \u2014 the opportunities there are growing,\u201d said Aaron Bennett, chief investment officer of Canada\u2019s University Pension Plan, adding that governments were starting to do \u201csome difficult but necessary things to improve their long-term economic competitiveness\u201d.<\/p>\n

Stewart concluded that when Aware Super looks at the UK and Europe and thinks about \u201cthe big global themes that we want to invest in\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009we feel really comfortable with how we are investing here\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the Pensions industry myFT Digest — delivered directly to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":186098,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3093],"tags":[51,474,2499,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-186097","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-finance","10":"tag-personal-finance","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114686872968909565","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}