In recently published responses to questions on notice from the House of Representatives standing committee on economics, IFM Investors said it had distributed dividends totalling $52.3 million to parent company Industry Super Holdings during the last five years.
The holding company is in turn owned by 27 industry super funds, including AustralianSuper, HESTA, Cbus and UniSuper.
IFM had also bought insurance from IFS Insurance Solutions, the specialist broking arm of another Industry Super Holdings subsidiary, Industry Fund Services. The cost was not disclosed.
The answers were not delivered without a reference to IFM’s previous complaint however, that it is the only fund manager that had been summoned before the committee, in its inquiry into the superannuation sector.
Further, it noted that a number of its answers had already been provided to the committee, and many of the questions regarded super fund activity specifically – despite the group not being a super fund.
“We further note that IFM has co-operated with the committee since 2019, appearing at its request on two occasions, and responding to over 100 questions on notice and many more during hearings,” IFM stated in the letter sent on 1 April.
“To provide commercially sensitive information to the committee, which its global peers and competitors are not required to do, would place IFM at a competitive disadvantage and could risk the investment returns to members. Further, in some cases, disclosure would constitute a breach of a commercial contract.”
Committee chair Tim Wilson has also pushed for IFM’s chair Greg Combet, who is also chair of Industry Super Australia and Industry Super Holdings, to appear before the committee – a request that has once again been denied.
“IFM’s chief executive is the appropriate representative of the firm before the Committee,” the investment manager stated in its newest round of answers.
IFM also revealed its gender split at different levels of the organization. Covering all employees, 43.8 per cent of the company’s staff were female, while 56.2 per cent were male, as at January. This compared to 37 per cent of employees being female in 2017.
But at the director level and above, IFM had 36.6 per cent female and 63.4 per cent male at the beginning of 2021. Four years prior, the divide had been 26.4 per cent women against 73.6 per cent men.
Among the global senior executive team, IFM’s gender split was 36 per cent women and 64 per cent men in January, compared to 9 per cent women and 91 per cent men in 2017.
The company has set itself annual gender diversity targets, which are included in the performance assessment of the global leadership team.
It has also committed to HESTA’s 40:40 Vision initiative, with investors pushing for ASX 200 companies to hire women in at least 40 per cent of executive roles by 2030.
The answers further showed the pay packets for its chief executive and deputy CEO in 2019/20, when former CEO Brett Himbury was paid $663,315 in total remuneration, while deputy Joshua Lim received $1.3 million.
Mr Himbury’s pay did not reflect a full year however, as his term ended in March last year, when he was replaced by the current CEO, David Neal.
Sarah Simpkins
Sarah Simpkins is a journalist at Momentum Media, reporting primarily on banking, financial services and wealth.
Prior to joining the team in 2018, Sarah worked in trade media and produced stories for a current affairs program on community radio.
You can contact her on [email protected].
