The Rio Tinto Staff Superannuation Fund, one of the few remaining large corporate funds, is looking to outsource overall management of the fund and is conducting a review.

The $5.1 billion fund has used JANA Investment Advisers as its asset consultant for many years and Mercer as its member administrator and provider of actuarial services.

It is a sophisticated fund with nine investment options, overseen by principal investment officer Wayne Grant.

The fund has about 30,000 members and is also one of the few big funds that conducts elections for member trustee positions.

Even when trusteeship is outsourced by the plan sponsor, funds retain responsibility for their outsource partners’ actions. There is also usually a long tail of old defined benefit accounts to be administered. In the Rio Tinto fund’s case, only about 5 per cent of the fund of the fund is defined benefit.