Colonial First State
Colonial First State (CFS), established in 1873 as the Colonial Mutual Life Assurance Society (CML), is an Australian wealth management group that provides investment, superannuation and retirement products to individuals and corporate and superannuation fund investors. In 1994, Colonial Mutual acquired the State Bank of New South Wales, and the merged entity was subsequently rebranded as Colonial First State. CFS demutualised in 1997 and in 2000, it was acquired by the Commonwealth Bank. In May 2020, owner Commonwealth Bank announced that, subject to gaining approval from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority and Foreign Investment Review Board, it  would sell a 55% interest in the business to KKR. The transaction was completed in November 2021. CFS narrowly missed passing the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) annual performance test for one of its MySuper products, FirstChoice Employer Super, in 2021. Since then, CFS has taken several measures to improve performance and pass the performance test next year. This includes reducing fees and appointing BlackRock (one of the world's largest asset manager with around US$9.5tn in assets under management) to enhance its approach to managing investments in its MySuper investment products, which comprise around 10% of funds under  administration. CFS will continue to set the investment strategy, oversee investment decisions and manage the implementation of investment decisions in consultation with BlackRock. CFS announced its commitment on climate change, aligning CFS to the goals of the Paris Agreement and committing to net zero emissions by 2050 and to a 30 per cent reduction in Greenhouse Gas emissions from 2019 levels for its investment portfolios.