ANZ KiwiSaver Scheme Details

History

Beginning in 1835, the bank of ANZ was established in Sydney, Australia under the Royal Charter. It was established in New Zealand in 1840, making it New Zealand’s oldest bank. It has a strong heritage in Business Banking and offers a full range of banking options, including Personal, Rural, Corporate, Commercial, Institutional and Private Banking. In 1951, UBA and the Bank of Australasia merged to become Australia and New Zealand Bank (ANZ Bank). 

ANZ moved its corporate headquarters to Melbourne, Australia in 1976, and three years later an Act of Parliament permitted ANZ to incorporate its branches in New Zealand as ANZ Banking Group (New Zealand) Ltd. ANZ sold 25% of the shares to the public.

In 1983, ANZ opened its New Zealand head office in Wellington. In December 2003, the ANZ Banking Group bought The National Bank from Lloyds TSB. The banks operated as separate brands until 2012 when they were brought together under the ANZ brand.

Below is a link to more information about their History :

Size

ANZ is one of the world's largest banks and their businesses serve more than 5 million customers. ANZ manages six funds under its OneAnswer KiwiSaver scheme and has total Assets Under Management (AUM) of more than $NZD 10 billion and 592,230 members.  

Awards

- Morningstar Awards - New Zealand Fund Manager of the Year 2020

- SuperRatings Platinum Rating 2019

- Morningstar Kiwisaver Bronze Rating 2019

- Morningstar Default Kiwisaver Bronze rating 2019

The Investment team

Paul Huxford - Chief Investment Officer

Paul has overall investment responsibility for ANZ Investments across all asset classes, in addition to managing the investment team. He joined ANZ in 2018 with over 25 years of global capital markets risk experience in Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand.

Before joining ANZ, Paul held the following key roles: Managing Director - Europe Middle East and Africa Equities Research (JPMorgan), Managing Director - Australian Equities Research (JPMorgan) and Head of New Zealand Country Credit Risk (Bankers Trust/Deutsche).

Alan Clarke - Co-Head of Diversified Portfolio Management

Alan is jointly responsible for the Diversified Funds across ANZ Investments, which includes KiwiSaver, retail, wholesale, and private bank portfolios. In addition to diversified portfolio management duties, Alan leads the selection, appointment, and monitoring of external managers and ANZ Investments’ approach to responsible investing.

Alan has over 18 years of industry experience and joined ANZ in 2006 before moving to the investment team as an analyst in 2007. From 2000 to 2005, Alan worked with investment firm Morley Funds Management (UK) and with Dutch fund-of-hedge-funds company, Theta Capital Management.

Maaike Van Tol - Co-Head of Diversified Portfolio Management

Maaike is jointly responsible for the management of the Diversified Funds across ANZ Investments, which includes KiwiSaver, retail, wholesale, and private bank portfolios. In addition to diversified portfolio management responsibilities, Maaike is focused on the asset allocation process, which includes both strategic and tactical asset allocation.

Maaike has over 13 years’ industry experience and started at ANZ in 2015. Before ANZ, she worked as a Strategic Advice Specialist at ING Investment Management advising large Dutch pension fund clients on asset allocation, and Structured Products Portfolio Manager for IMC Asset Management in the Netherlands.

Mathew Young - Head of Foreign Exchange and Investment Implementation

Mathew is responsible for the implementation of investment decisions across our KiwiSaver, retail, private bank, and wholesale portfolios. He also leads the research for setting the strategic direction of foreign exchange positions for our portfolios and is involved in the wider strategy discussions.

Mat has been involved in the fund’s management industry for over 18 years and joined ANZ in 2002. Prior to that, he worked for a variety of firms in London including Old Mutual Fund Management and Hemscott.net.

How is the Investment Team Structured?

The investment team monitors the attractiveness of each asset class and adjusts the allocation depending on how they believe each will perform. The funds invest in underlying funds that ANZ manages. ANZ believes this management structure is a benefit because it creates efficiencies and we have greater control of the overall cost.

Their investment management team selects the assets for most of the underlying funds investing in Australasian assets. For the underlying funds investing in international assets, they are selected by a small number of external fund managers who they believe are among the best in their class.

ANZ's Responsibilities

ANZ is responsible for the investment of the Scheme’s assets, in accordance with legislative requirements, the Trust Deed, the Product Disclosure Statement (PDS), and the SIPO.

Their responsibilities include:

• Maintaining the investment governance framework including effective investment policies
• Establishing investment beliefs and investment process
• Setting investment objectives and risk tolerance for the Funds
• Determining the investment strategy for each Fund. This includes the Benchmark Asset Allocation, ranges, other limits, and appropriate indices
• Implementing the investment strategy
• Monitoring Fund investment performance relative to objectives and compliance with strategy limits.

ANZ is responsible for reviewing the performance of its investment managers and that is undertaken on a regular basis.

All KiwiSaver Scheme Providers must ensure they meet regulatory standards and act with customer interests in mind.

KiwiSaver Scheme Managers must exercise care, diligence and skill in the investment of scheme assets, and act in accordance with the stated investment policy and objectives. The FMA monitors that KiwiSaver Schemes are compliant with their obligations. Additionally, KiwiSaver Scheme Trustees also have a responsibility as front-line supervisors for monitoring the management and administration of these schemes.

ANZ's Supervisor & Custodian

A custodian plays a key role in protecting your investments. They hold your money and investments (i.e. keep custody of them) on your behalf. So they are the legal holder of your assets while you are the beneficial and ultimate owner.

A supervisor is a licensed entity independent of the KiwiSaver scheme provider that supervises the provider’s management of the scheme. KiwiSaver schemes are trusts, and (except for restricted KiwiSaver schemes) the terms of the trust deed states that the supervisor (or another custodian) must hold all contributions and investments in trust for the investors.

The Custodian and Supervisor are the New Zealand Guardian Trust Company Ltd. Guardian Trust is the corporate trustee for many of New Zealand's leading corporations, financial institutions, fund managers, and banks. Their clients span a broad range of business activities and the quality of their client portfolio reflects our status as a provider of corporate trustee services in New Zealand. As of June 2018, they manage funds in excess of NZ$ 120 billion.

Below you will find a link to a more detailed look into the Guardian trust:

ANZ's Governance Process 

ANZ’s Board is composed of eight Non-Executive, independent Directors (including an independent Chair, David Gonski, AC), and one Executive Director — ANZ’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Shayne Elliott.

Under ANZ’s Constitution, the Board may delegate any of its powers to committees of the Board. ANZ has five principal Board Committees — the Audit Committee (chaired by Paula Dwyer), the Ethics, Environment, Social and Governance (EESG) Committee (chaired by David Gonski, AC), the Risk Committee (chaired by Graeme Liebelt), the Human Resources Committee (chaired by Ilana Atlas) and the Digital Business and Technology Committee (chaired by Lee Hsien Yang). Each Committee has its own Charter setting out its roles and responsibilities.

At the management level, the Group Executive Committee (ExCo) comprises ANZ’s most senior executives. ANZ has a delegation of authority framework that clearly outlines those matters delegated to the CEO and other members of senior management.

ANZ also has a number of formally established management committees that deal with particular sets of ongoing issues. They operate in accordance with Group Guidelines that define their decision making authority.

Below is a link, for more information about their Corporate Governance Statement:

How do they decide where to invest?

ANZ Investments is an active manager and is committed to its philosophy of active investment management. ANZ considers itself as long term investors with a preference for holding quality investments, ones that are well diversified, and which are highly liquid.

Underpinning this approach, there are six basic elements to ANZ’s investment philosophy:

1. Active Management: ANZ will actively manage your portfolio with the aim of achieving better returns than a particular index or market.

2. Right Investment Mix: They make sure they have the most effective investment mix. They will adjust a portfolio’s investment mix depending on how they believe each asset class is likely to perform. 

3. Responsible Investment: They are committed to responsible investing because we believe it is in the best long-term interests of our investors. It is good for society and it’s good for our investment portfolios too.

6. Long-Term Investing: They believe that long-term investors will out-perform short-term investors.
   
   
7. Quality, Transparency, and Visibility: They believe in the value of quality, simplicity, and transparency when selecting and holding investments.
   
   
8. Governance and Portfolio Management: Their investment process is underpinned by strong governance and efficient portfolio management.

External Manager Selection

ANZ focuses on selecting Investment Managers who are specialists within their particular investment markets and who have demonstrated the capability and conviction in portfolio construction and the execution of investment strategies.

ANZ has a process for selecting external fund managers, who manage some of the international assets in the underlying funds. They select external fund managers that ANZ believes are among the best in their class. They take into account both quantitative and qualitative aspects and look at a number of factors, including: 

• People – experienced and stable investment teams
• Parent firm – stable businesses being well-led by experienced company management
• Investment philosophy and process – a sensible philosophy that is reflected in a disciplined process
• Performance – managers that have generated strong performance over a number of market cycles. 

Once selected, an external fund manager is subject to a rigorous on-going monitoring process. Each external fund manager is regularly assessed against the above criteria. We also regularly compare our external fund managers against other managers we rate highly.

Investment Performance Monitoring

ANZ reviews the investment strategy for each fund as part of their strategic asset allocation process. This is done at least once every three years to set each fund’s target investment mix and ranges. ANZ forecasts how each asset class will perform over the long term, both in isolation and in relation to other asset classes. They then use the forecasts to construct the most effective target investment mix and ranges, with the aim of: 

• Increasing the probability of achieving the investment objectives
• Achieving the highest return over time within acceptable risk levels.

As part of the review, the metrics that may be monitored include:

• The probability of a negative yearly return
• Stress testing how each fund would perform in a range of scenarios
• The expected number of years out of 20 in which returns will be negative
• Assessment of concentration of risk factors. For the Cash Fund, it is unlikely that the target investment mix and ranges will change.

Socially responsible investing (SRI) or Environmental, Social and Governance investing (ESG), also known as sustainable, socially conscious, “green” or ethical investing, is any investment strategy which seeks to consider both financial return and social/environmental good to bring about social change regarded as positive by society.

Basically, SRI investing is investing in companies that have a positive impact on society, based on a number of factors.

ANZ’s Responsible Investment Policy

ANZ’s goal is to deliver sustainable performance in a sustainable way. That means assessing investments against both financial and non-financial criteria.

Traditional investment approaches focus mainly on financial criteria such as balance sheet strength and future earnings forecasts. ANZ also takes environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors into account. As these factors are some of the drivers of long-term investment risks and returns, they believe that including them in their assessment criteria will help them identify investments that can deliver more sustainable long-term performance – which is in the best long-term interest of both their investors and wider. 

Below you will find a link to a more detailed look into their Responsible investment Policy.

Sustainable Investment

As a signatory to the United Nations-supported Principles for Responsible Investment, ANZ abides by six principles which provide guidelines for institutions on incorporating environmental, social, and governance factors into their investment processes:

• Incorporating ESG issues into investment analysis and decision-making processes.
• Being active owners and incorporating ESG issues into our ownership policies and practices.
• Seeking appropriate disclosure on ESG issues by the entities in which they invest.
• Promoting acceptance and implementation of the principles within the investment industry.
• Working together with other signatories to enhance our effectiveness in implementing the principles.
• Reporting on their activities and progress towards implementing the principles.

Ethical Exclusions

ANZ’s active investment management approach means they continually review their investments and prospective investments against both their financial and ESG criteria. These reviews consider some or all of the following:

• Global best practice
• Our view on the expectations of our investors or clients
• The impact of exclusion on returns
• The severity of any ESG related breaches or actions, or
• The likely success of an alternative course of action (for example, engagement).
• Depending on the results of our review, we might continue to hold, review on a periodic basis, divest, or exclude the company or industry as an investment.

ANZ currently excludes investments in companies that are involved in: 

• Manufacturing controversial weapons, including cluster munitions and anti-personnel mines
• Manufacturing or testing nuclear explosive devices
• Manufacturing tobacco products.
• Manufacturing automatic and semi-automatic firearms, magazines, or parts for civilian use.
• They have also excluded some companies, across a range of industries, that have breached global norms or standards to a severe degree.

A full list of companies that ANZ excludes can be found here: