Passion is the driving force behind UBS Asset Management. The group itself actively seeks it out in the people it hires and indeed uses it as a measure of its own success. However, for managing director Bryce Doherty, he’d like to see more Australians apply it to one area in particular: superannuation.
“I would like regular Australians to be far more engaged with their superannuation,” Doherty says.
“Ultimately, a superannuation account will be the second largest asset they own behind the family home and I think it’s important that people realise that and take an interest in their superannuation at a much earlier stage.”
He believes that if the group is passionate about what it does, this will be passed on to investors and result in an increased engagement and understanding of superannuation.
“I think finding ways for people to interact more simply with their superannuation will help them be more engaged,” he says.
This is increasingly important as life expectancies continue to accelerate.
“People need to realise that they’re going to be retired for probably almost as long as they were working,” he says.
“And so they need to think about the actual time that they have, and how their income is going to sustain them over that period of time.
“There’re definitely things that policymakers can do to help this, by encouraging people to continue working and contributing to their retirement savings.”
However UBS is also doing its own part to address this by hiring people who are passionate about helping investors achieve their goals.
“We also make sure that we have people who have got a wide variety of experience, and a wide variety of views to help bring different ideas to UBS,” he says.
In turn, Doherty hopes this will help him with his own personal mission to help people attain a secure and dignified retirement.
“One of the greatest challenges as we live longer is having dignity in retirement, and that means that we’re able to continue living a lifestyle that we were living while we were working, right up until our last days,” he says.
“There’s a lot of work being done on this at the moment, but policy makers need to be made far more aware of the challenges.”
Bryce Doherty runs a team of around 100 professionals which look after Australians’ money in fixed income, equities and multi-asset investments. UBS Asset Management currently manages $45 billion in funds under management predominantly on behalf of Australians for their superannuation funds.
Written by Elizabeth Somerville, Content and Community Manager, evolution media group.
