Private asset titan Apollo is coming for Australia’s super riches
Australia’s superannuation sector is not prepared for the nearing demographic cliff when the bulk of members’ capital shifts to drawing-down income, one of the world’s largest private capital managers warns.
Marc Rowan, chief executive of $US617 billion ($946 billion) Wall Street asset manager Apollo Global Management, argues few economies have enjoyed as much benefit from falling interest rates, rising commodity prices and globalisation as Australia’s.
He questions whether Australia’s wealth industry recognises – as he suspects – that these formative trends have peaked, if not reversed.
“I’m particularly interested in the pivot from accumulation to retirement. I don’t think what’s gotten us here, is going to get us going forward,” Mr Rowan said.
Apollo’s Marc Rowan sees a world that has changed dramatically since the GFC. Bloomberg
There has been “a fundamental shift into a different regime” in financial markets that should force Australian investors to reconsider their reliance on riskier investments such as shares and property, and place greater emphasis on fixed income such as bonds and credit.
Apollo has increasingly targeted pension and super clients under Mr Rowan’s watch by focusing high-grade lending and positioning itself as a provider of retirement solutions.
“[Australia has] been a young country, and it’s been an equity and real estate culture. But we’re all getting older, and there’s been very little thought to how one de-accumulates, and takes money and actually retires,” he said.
Mr Rowan, 60, is in Australia to participate in the annual Visy and The Australian Financial Review super and lending forum, first held in 2017.
He said the local superannuation sector had been the envy of the world, but its focus
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