Ramanan Sooriyakumar joined the investment strategy team of Melbourne-based Cbus Super, the A$33 billion ($24 billion) superannuation fund for Australia’s construction industry, as a senior equities research analyst.
The position is a new one at the superannuation fund, which is one year into a long-term plan to build up internal management capabilities.
Mr. Sooriyakumar’s primary focus will be developing internal equities strategies, while additionally providing support for the fund’s manager research and dynamic asset allocation efforts, a Cbus news release said.
Mr. Sooriyakumar was an executive director and equities research analyst at Goldman Sachs (Melbourne). A Goldman Sachs spokeswoman didn’t immediately have information regarding plans to replace him in that role.
External managers currently oversee almost all of the superannuation fund’s allocations, but a year after Cbus’ investment committee approved the hiring of Kiran Singh, manager equities, to head an internalization effort, “we’re close to going back to the committee” with specific proposals for equity strategies to bring in-house, said Brett Chatfield, general manager-public markets, in a telephone interview.
In the same interview, Mr. Singh, while declining to provide specifics before getting investment committee approval, said the plan for now is to develop significant internal capabilities even as a majority of portfolio assets continue to be managed externally by specialist managers.
