Future Group is forging ahead with its growth strategy by announcing its second inorganic expansion for 2023. One month after announcing the acquisition of Guild Super, Future Group has successfully acquired Verve Super.
Future Group is a collective of super funds and financial services dedicated to a single cause: to lead the movement to use the power of money to invest, advocate and campaign for a future worth retiring into.
Verve Super is Australia’s first superannuation product created by women, for women. It was co-founded by Christina Hobbs, Alex Andrews and Zoe Lamont in 2018, with the objective of addressing the 35% gender gap in retirement savings through ethical superannuation investments, and now supports over 6,900 members and manages more than $271 million in funds.
As a wholly-owned subsidiary of Future Group, Verve will continue to be led by women and will maintain a focus on serving women+.
“A significant milestone”
The acquisition marks a significant milestone for both Verve Super and Future Group.
With increasing pressure on fund consolidation in the industry, the strategic move ensures Verve Super can continue to deliver its product offering under the Future Group’s structure.
Verve Super has a long-standing relationship with Future Group’s investment arm — Future Super Investment Services — which has served as its investment manager since Verve’s inception in 2018. Future Group previously owned 20% of Verve Super.
Future Group CEO and founder Simon Sheikh said: “The acquisition is a full circle moment for both funds. Verve founders Christina Hobbs and Alex Andrews started at Future Super and launched Verve in 2018 with a focus on gender lens investing and providing enhanced services for women.”
“Both Verve and Future Group share a commitment to ethical investing, with both the Verve product and the Future Super product strictly adhering to a principle of not investing in fossil fuel companies. This alignment makes Verve Super’s integration into Future Group a natural fit, further reinforcing both funds’ dedication to benefiting members’ best interests while investing for a sustainable and equitable future”.
Leveraging Future Group’s ethical investment experience
Verve founder Christina Hobbs said: “The transition will bring many benefits for our predominantly female membership, including the ability to leverage Future Group’s ethical investment expertise to increase our focus on strong gender lens investing and to deliver enhanced services for women.
“At a time of increasing consolidation within the superannuation industry, we’re delighted to have taken this strategic move to ensure the long-term success of Australia’s first superannuation offering to be designed for women continues within the Future Group structure.”
Sheikh added, “Verve members have already benefited from an instant fee reduction as part of the partnership with Future Group. Members fees have dropped from 0.725% p.a to 0.541% p.a. Verve and Future Group have a common objective of closing the super gap for women and a key part of that is to make its financial products a competitive option for people to join.”
An acquisition strategy
Marking the beginning of Future Group’s inorganic growth strategy was the acquisition of smartMonday from global retirement business Aon in 2021.
Then there was last month’s acquisition of Guild Super — the super fund for the pharmacy, veterinary and allied health industries — along with the acquisition of Verve Super that has now solidified Future Group’s position as a leader in the superannuation industry.
Future Group is now one of the top 15 largest superannuation groups by number of members served, supporting over 383,000 members and with $13.4 billion in funds under management and advice.
Following the transaction the group will have five superannuation brands: Future Super, smartMonday, Guild Super Services, Child Care Super and Verve Super.
The Verve acquisition leads to a strong gender lens investing mandate to deliver enhanced services for all Future Group members.