Branson’s Virgin enters Australian super industry

SYDNEY - Virgin Group chief executive Richard Branson will enter Australia's A$649 billion ($705 billion) pension-fund industry, one of the world's fastest-growing retirement-savings markets for individual investors.

Branson, who started a credit-card business in Australia in 2003, will invest as much as A$30 million, his largest investment in the nation, Virgin said yesterday.

The company will start a pension-fund business for individuals on July 1, when laws giving workers a choice of where employers invest their retirement savings begin.

Australia is the world's fastest-growing wealth-management market for individual investors among nations that have at least US$100 billion of such funds, according to London-based consultants Cerulli Associates. Australian employers must pay 9 per cent of workers' wages into pension products.

Macquarie Bank will be Virgin's investment manager.

Australia had A$648.9 billion of pension-fund assets in January, according to the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia.

- BLOOMBERG