Australia's Future Fund recruits ex-Carlyle dealmaker as PE head
Future Fund has recruited David Bluff, who stepped down last year as The Carlyle Group’s Australia and New Zealand buyout head, to lead its private equity investment programme.
The sovereign wealth fund has also brought in Sarah Azzi as a director on the private equity team. She previously worked at Anacacia Capital and Mercer.
Bluff will report to Alicia Gregory who joined Future Fund in 2019 as head of private equity and was promoted to deputy CIO responsible for private markets two years ago. Since her elevation, Gregory has been serving as acting head of private equity.
Bluff spent 14 years at Carlyle, assuming leadership of the Australia and New Zealand buyout team in 2016 and becoming a partner two years later. Prior to entering private equity, he was a corporate finance executive at SAB Miller and an investment banker at J.P. Morgan.
“He has deep investment experience across private markets globally and is a well-respected leader in our industry. David joins an experienced team overseeing a significant, global portfolio of private equity investments,” Gregory said in a statement.
Future Fund’s PE exposure amounted to 16.9%, or AUD 33.2bn (USD 22.3bn), as of December 2022. The sovereign wealth fund’s core portfolio was worth AUD 196.1bn, having surpassed AUD 200bn for the first time in 2021. It posted a 3.7% loss for the 2022 calendar year amid rising inflation and volatility in public markets.
In a recent white paper, Future Fund questioned whether traditional portfolio construction is dead, given how investment tailwinds of the past 30 years have turned into headwinds.
It suggested that as the landscape changes, accepted investment models based on correlation and diversification are less sturdy. Future Fund advocates increasing PE investment in pursuit of alpha, focusing on liquidity and dynamic asset allocation, maintaining a broader currency basket, increasing domestic exposure through infrastructure, and adding more tangible assets as inflation protection.
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