UniSuper is an Australian superannuation fund that provides superannuation services to employees of Australia's higher education and research sector. The fund has over 615,000 members and A$124 billion in funds under management, as of 30 June 2023.[1]
 | |
| Company type | Mutual fund |
|---|---|
| Industry | Industry superannuation |
| Predecessors |
|
| Founded | October 2000 |
| Headquarters | Level 1, 385 Bourke Street, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia |
Key people | Peter Chun, CEO Ian Martin, Chairman |
| AUM |  A$124 billion (funds under management) |
| Members | 620,000 |
| Website | unisuper |
UniSuper is a not-for-profit company whose shareholders are 37 Australian universities and is governed by a corporate Trustee, UniSuper Limited. All the universities have representation on the Consultative Committee.
UniSuper has been granted a MySuper authority, enabling it to continue to receive default superannuation contributions from 1 January 2014.
Fund history
editUniSuper was founded in October 2000, as a result of a merger between the Superannuation Scheme for Australian Universities (SSAU) and the Tertiary Education Superannuation Scheme (TESS). Prior to the merger, UniSuper had been the trustee for the SSAU.[2]
UniSuper has pursued a strategy of buying 'fortress' stocks (defensible against disruption), as well as bringing investment functions in-house, in order to achieve significant returns over time.[3]
In May 2024, due to a misconfiguration of a Google Cloud VMware Engine Private Cloud by Google operators as a result of leaving a parameter blank, a previously unknown bug was triggered, resulting in all of UniSuper's data on the platform being deleted.[4] The vast majority of data was later recovered from backup sources, and Google put in place safeguards to ensure a similar incident would not happen again.[5] Google described it as a "one-of-a-kind" event[6] which had never previously occurred within Google Cloud.
Fund governance
editUniSuper's day-to-day administration is managed by a wholly owned company, UniSuper Management Pty Ltd (UniSuper Management).
UniSuper's Chief Executive Officer is Peter Chun.[7]
Board of directors
editUniSuper's Board of Directors governs the operations of UniSuper to ensure the Fund is administered in accordance with the Trust Deed, and determines the strategic direction of the Fund. The Board represents, and is accountable to, the members of UniSuper and the Fund's participating employers.
The directors of UniSuper as of 2017 are:[8][needs update?]
- Directors representing employers
- Nominated by shareholder universities
- Professor Peter Dawkins (Vice-Chancellor and President, Victoria University)
- Professor Jane den Hollander (Vice Chancellor, Deakin University)
- Nominated by the Consultative Committee employer representatives
- Nicole Gower
- Stephen Somogyi
- Directors representing members
- Nominated by the Consultative Committee member representatives
- Professor Lelia Green
- Keith Tull
- Nominated by national unions
- Grahame McCulloch - National Tertiary Education Union
- Sarah Roberts - National Tertiary Education Union
- Independent Directors
- Ian Martin AM (Chairman)
- Nicolette Rubinsztein
- Mark Amour
Consultative Committee
editThe Consultative Committee reviews and approves changes to the Trust Deed and is responsible for nominating four directors to the Board of Directors.
Shareholder universities each appoint up to four members to the Consultative Committee. Half the members represent the employers, the other half represents, equally, academic staff and general staff.
As at 24 March 2017, the Consultative Committee had 145 members and there were four vacant positions.[9]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ "Who we are - UniSuper". www.unisuper.com.au/about-us/who-we-are. Archived from the original on 10 May 2024. Retrieved 10 May 2024.
- ^ "Fund Profile - UniSuper". www.unisuper.com.au. Archived from the original on 27 March 2018. Retrieved 8 July 2018.
- ^ Miles, Stephen (5 August 2019). "The secrets behind UniSuper's sparkling outperformance". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 28 August 2019.
- ^ "UniSuper's Google cloud deletion traced to "blank parameter" in setup". iTnews. Retrieved 7 August 2024.
- ^ "Sharing details on a recent incident impacting one of our customers". Google Cloud Blog. 24 May 2024. Retrieved 7 August 2024.
- ^ "A joint statement from UniSuper and Google Cloud". UniSuper. Retrieved 7 August 2024.
- ^ "Executive leadership team - UniSuper". www.unisuper.com.au. Archived from the original on 4 December 2021. Retrieved 4 December 2021.
- ^ "Our Board". UniSuper. Archived from the original on 4 December 2021. Retrieved 4 December 2021.
- ^ "Committees - UniSuper". www.unisuper.com.au. Archived from the original on 27 March 2018. Retrieved 8 July 2018.