Didn’t make the meeting? You can watch the recording here or you can read our recap of the presentations below.

Overall Fund strategy

TelstraSuper CEO Chris Davies shared the high level Fund strategy, including our six strategic priorities: 

• Providing a first-rate member experience
• Evolving products and services to suit our members
• Delivering consistently strong long-term investment performance
• Creating a vibrant, empowered and inclusive workforce to support our members
• Striving for operational excellence, and  
• Pursuing growth

The CEO also shared how the Fund adapted this strategy during COVID 19 so members could still receive a strong level of service. This included measures such as the introduction of a COVID-19 microsite (including our very first chat bot), regular email updates, and shifting our member and advice programs to a completely online environment. 

As for many businesses, it was an incredibly busy time for the Fund with the contact centre receiving a 60% increase in calls in March compared to the previous year, and more than 1.7 million logins to SuperOnline. We also changed insurer, maintained our Platinum* rating by SuperRatings in recognition of being a “best value for money” super Fund, and increased automation across the Fund.

Investment strategy 

Chief Investment Officer Graeme Miller updated members on how the Fund weathered one of the most volatile years ever for investment markets.

There were three key areas of focus during the pandemic:

• Assessing impact of volatility on investments and adjusting accordingly where required
• Communicating clearly and regularly with members to keep them informed,  including communicating about the impact of panic switching, and
• Maintaining sufficient liquidity in the Fund.

Graeme shared the importance of keeping a long-term perspective when it comes to investments and gave the example of a member with a $10,000 balance in the Balanced Option on 30 June 2010. This member will have seen that balance grow to $20,500 by 30 June 2020 and this would now be almost $22,500 as at 31 January of this year.  If that member had switched their investment option into cash in the middle of March 2020 (everything else being equal), their balance would be around just $19,400 as at 31 January of this year.

We shared the investment returns for the last financial year, but also the returns up until the end of January (the seven months between 1 July 2020 and 31 January 2021) which we are pleased to report have been strong.  

We also talked about our current investment portfolios and some of the assets we hold such as shares in Microsoft, Apple and Alphabet, our large property holding including 34 Bunnings stores, cyber security companies, office buildings, shopping centres, medical centres and more.

Policy and regulatory change

TelstraSuper Chair Anne-Marie Corboy explained how the Fund responded to the large amount of regulatory change, including temporary changes to the early release of super rules to help people impacted by COVID. Importantly, the amount of early release super paid out due to COVID represented around 0.5% of Funds under management, so has not significantly affected the Fund’s size or scale. The Chair also updated members on the work TelstraSuper has been doing with Indigenous charity First Nations Foundations to help empower Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander members.

Extending the Fund’s membership to friends

We also announced the launch of a new initiative that will allow friends of TelstraSuper members to join the Fund. This means that the Fund you trust with your super is now open to your friends too. This launched on March 1 and you can read more about it here.

Launching our Climate Action Plan

The Chair also shared an update on responsible investing, and that the Board has recently endorsed a Climate Action Plan that will see the Fund aim to achieve zero net emissions in its investment portfolios by 2050. 

As part of the plan we evaluate the Fund’s current portfolio exposure and future exposure, and set climate related targets that link to the UN Sustainable Development Goals and framework. 

And while our goal is to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, the Fund will be targeting specific investments in low carbon opportunities, divesting from our single passive thermal coal asset, and redesigning benchmarks to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions – all in the next 12 months.  

Full details of the plan will be shared with members in coming weeks but in the meantime you can read about our approach to responsible investing here.

Reducing our administration fee from 1 July

Members were also informed  that they should expect to see a fee reduction from 1 July 2021. As a profit-to-member Fund, we aim to keep costs as low as possible for our members without compromising on service. We regularly review our fees and reduce them where we can. Members can expect to see more about this in coming months.

Member Q&A

During the meeting members had the opportunity to ask questions – with a number of members choosing to submit questions ahead of the meeting. We answered 14 questions live (you can watch these in the video recording) and remaining questions have been answered on our website. 

Thank you

The Chair thanked members for their ongoing support of the Fund and encouraged them to take advantage of the services and assistance available through the TelstraSuper website and contact centre. She also thanked the TelstraSuper Board and staff for their continued hard work and effort throughout the year, despite the challenges of a global pandemic. 

The next TelstraSuper Annual Members’ Meeting for 2020/21 will be held later this year – we’ll share details in the coming months.