SSFS was established to provide financial planning services to all public sector employees and is owned by the NSW Government’s SAS Trustee Corporation (STC), also known as State Super. SSFS has its own investment management team and has been operating since 1990.

Simone Bouch, Head of Business Australasia, Standard Life Investments said:  “This investment from SSFS reflects the increasing confidence we are seeing in GARS from the Australian market.

“We are pleased that a growing number of Australian investors are able to benefit from the strong returns and low volatility that GARS offers. The proportion of super fund members who will move from the pre-retirement to the post-retirement stage will increase three-fold over the next decade and it is increasingly important that super funds adopt strategies to cope with market swings, while positioning them for future growth.”

Damian Graham, Chief Investment Officer, State Super Financial Services confirmed the investment in GARS is part of a broader restructure of its investments, aimed at building and better preserving investors’ savings. He said:

“Our focus is on providing our members with income certainty in their retirement.  The average age of an SSFS client is 66, with almost all being in the pension phase. We are adopting alternative investments as part of a different approach to managing and limiting downside risk. The global crisis underlined that volatility can have a dramatically bad impact on retirement savings and achieving reasonable returns needs to come with less volatility.

“We are attracted to GARS because of its strong track record and ability to perform well in a variety of market conditions. The strategy invests in traditional asset classes and also uses several advanced derivative strategies to construct a highly diversified liquid portfolio which can help withstand market shocks – an important attribute particularly for retired investors,” Mr Graham said.

GARS has a proven consistent four-year track record of returns for Australian investors. The multi-asset strategy delivered an overall return of 11.7% per annum for Australian investors, gross of fees, over the four years from inception in 2009 to 31 December 2013 .

The risk expectation for GARS is a third to half that of the equity market, with a target return of cash plus 5 per cent per annum (gross of fees), over rolling 3-year periods. The volatility of the fund over the four-year period has been just 4.5% compared to global equity volatility of 10% (12.8% for Australian equities).

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