Chart of the Week: Australia dominates Asia-Pacific

 Australian pension funds represent by far the largest proportion of pension funds based in the Asia- Pacific region.    

Pension Funds in Asia-Pacific 

  CoW - 11-9-13 -411 

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Data from Infrastructure Investor’s Research & Analytics team shows that there are currently 70 pension funds in Asia-Pacific that have an appetite for infrastructure investment, 81 percent of which are Australian. South Korea, at 9 percent, is home to the next highest proportion of pension fund investors in Asia. However, Japan’s $1.1 trillion Government Pension Investment Fund will dwarf all others if it were to make its maiden infrastructure investment. The pension carried out a feasibility study into the asset class last year.

September’s edition of Infrastructure Investor features an interview with QIC, which provides investment solutions to superannuation funds and other institutional investors in Australia. According to Matina Papathanasiou, QIC’s deputy head of global infrastructure, pension fund investors in Asia are likely increase their level of allocation to infrastructure so this segment of the LP community is likely to become even more important.

A list of the top five Australian pension funds by allocation to infrastructure is shown in the table below.

 

Rank Pension Fund
Allocation to Infra
($ AUD bn)
1 AustralianSuper  6.82
2 QSuper  3.97
3 Construction and Building
Unions Superannuation Fund (CBUS)
 
2.13
4 MTAA Superannuation Fund  1.08
5 Sunsuper  0.99