<b>Asset management - CFS, from cast-off to market leader</b>

January 01, 1999

Headline: Asset management - CFS, from cast-off to market leader
Source: Euromoney
Date: March 2000
Author: Graham Hand

A successful fund manager trapped in an ailing bank, First State was barely part of the equation when the government of New South Wales eventually shrugged off its state bank in 1994. Colonial snapped up the group at a bargain price and gave it its head. Graham Hand looks at the rise of CFS, Australia's second-largest fund manager, and interviews chief executive Chris Cuffe, as it goes international

Greg Perry

While governments worldwide are struggling to cope with problems that will arise because of ageing populations and inadequate pension provision, Australia has led the way with a particularly ambitious programme. Faced with potential pension liabilities that might have become an unsustainable tax burden, it has responded with compulsory superannuation. Its requirement that employers contribute up to 9% of gross salaries to long-term savings has guaranteed massive injections of new money into the hands of the country's institutional investors and has transformed the fund management industry as a by-product.

Riding the wave better than any long-established group, one Australian fund manager has in 10 years risen from insignificant subsidiary of a troubled state bank to industry leader with international growth plans.

<b>Asset management - CFS, from cast-off to market leader</b>

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