Aidan Puddy is arguably Australia’s least-known mega-fund manager. He manages over $45 billion has no public profile compared to stock picking superstars.
and repatriate London-listed shares to the ASX may have seemed like a technical piece of financial engineering. But for index fund managers like IFM Investors Aidan Puddy the move was hugely significant.
Aidan Puddy is arguably Australia’s least-known mega-fund manager. He manages over $45 billion worth of stocks but has no public profile compared to stock picking superstars, because he focuses on index investing on behalf of institutional clients. His team had to sell other shares to fund the purchases, and made contingency plans in case there was a huge jump in BHP’s share price.“There was a big risk management exercise with that because for an index portfolio, you don’t carry a lot of cash.”He had studied a generic bachelor of economics at Monash University in Melbourne, before finding a job in unit pricing at County Investment Management in the depths of the 1990s recession. “I just took what I could get”, he says.
“What they have done - and it’s made a big impression on me - is they talk about who we are managing money for and that is millions of Australians,” he says in a recent interview at IFM’s offices in Melbourne.While ESG investing is now highly popular, particularly when it comes to climate change, IFM’s long-term horizon means it has been advocating these core beliefs for the past 17 years.
IFM only reports its performance to the 22 super funds that own it. But Puddy says his products have outperformed over the long-term. “We have done what we consider a great job for our clients and their members.”“The bigger you are, the more impact you can have on companies,” he says. “It’s right that you should be able to be listened to.”
“While the average votes against the remuneration report remains under 10 per cent, the number of extreme votes against is trending upwards,” he said. The largest ‘no’ votes in 2021 were against Dexus, Link Administration, and Rio Tinto.
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