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Edition 7

22 March 2013

Welcome from Chris Cuffe

This week, we have a couple of excellent primers on related issues: mortality risk and the costs of residential aged care. Unfortunately, we will all need to deal with these subjects at some time, either for ourselves or our parents, so it is worth understanding both.

When we focus on retirement and superannuation, it is impossible to avoid issues such as ageing and death. It’s probably only when our own parents appear to age visibly or have serious health problems, or we notice we are attending more funerals, that we really start to consider mortality and who will look after family members as they age. According to the United Nations Population Division, by 2040, almost 40% of the population in many developed countries will be over 60 years old, up from less than 20% in 2010.

David Bell’s article provides an understanding of mortality risk and how long we can expect to live, and while some of you may find it heavy going, the conclusions are both powerful and inevitable. You may be retired for 40 years. Then Alex Denham takes us through some of the complexities of residential aged care in the clearest way I have ever read on this specialist subject. We have also included a link to a Bloomberg article on the worrying consequences of Japan’s ageing population, which may be a pointer to events in other countries, including Australia.

Many people think fund managers are not active enough in defending the rights of investors against company management, but a lot happens behind the scenes in addition to the occasional public showdown. Gabriel Radzyminski looks at shareholder activism in Australia.

Rick Cosier explains the steps we all need to follow to set a financial plan, and Andrew Bloore highlights the need to put the ‘self’ into self-managed super, because everyone is unique and each SMSF investment strategy must meet specific needs.

Latest posts from Cuffelinks, 22 February 2013, Edition 7

Mortality risk could be the death of you David Bell
Facing the daunting prospect of residential aged care Alex Denham
Shareholder activism in Australia Gabriel Radzyminski
Everyone needs a plan Rick Cosier
Putting the ‘self’ into self managed super Andrew Bloore

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