La Trobe Financial CEO Chris Andrews joins Forbes in Focus to discuss navigating market volatility, the power of private credit, and how AI is reshaping the investment landscape. With $20 billion under management and ambitious plans to grow to $55 billion, Andrews shares his bold vision, leadership lessons, and what it takes to build true resilience in today’s economy.
Below is an edited excerpt from the conversation. Watch the video for the full interview.
What skill is most underrated when it comes to leading an investment firm?
With an investment firm of this scale, there are so many things you’ve got to be across. Markets are dynamic, they are ever changing. There’s always pressures there. Tech. Obviously there has been a lot of talk about artificial intelligence, how we’ll iterate that into the business. They are all wonderful intellectual challenges.
For an investment manager, still, despite what goes on in markets, despite what’s happening in tech, it’s still all about the people. So if I’m able to provide those folks with clarity as to what we are trying to achieve, to remind them of what our core values are…We have so many experts across our business. They don’t need me to tell them how to do their job. They need me to knit the whole together. I think that’s the role of a CEO.
You mentioned the AI evolution. What’s the sentiment of the team and how are you managing that?
We are not finding any resistance at all. In fact, folks are really embracing it. It helps that we are growing so quickly. So I certainly think as we grow, we probably won’t need to add as many additional staff as we once would have. But that’s natural, and that’s been a part of the story of La Trobe Financial, certainly over the last three years. We are finding better ways, smarter ways to grow. Instead of throwing 400 people at every problem, maybe we only need 20. And that’s the leverage we are finding.
The economic environment in 2025 has been particularly turbulent. What are some of the signals that you are watching most closely in the Australian economy?
Investors need to step out of that panic-read-the-headlines, the-world-is-all-ruined sort of mindset. When times are really chaotic, that’s not a good time to be making investment decisions. What you want to be doing is making really solid decisions in times of quiet that will drive your portfolio through those times of chaos.
Given what is going on geopolitically, there is a strong argument that investors should be looking more defensively in their portfolios. Equities markets have run really strongly over the last few years in particular and there is a strong case for investors to say maybe the good news has been well and truly priced in and the risks may be pointing to the downside.
But again, what you want to be doing as an investor, unless you want to be looking at your portfolios and rebalancing them every day, you want to be taking the long-term view, and that long-term view has to be predicated on the fact that these periods of geopolitical stress, market stress, recessions, now global pandemics even, all need to be just business as usual.
OK, volatility is the norm. Where are you seeing some of the opportunities for Australian investors right now?
Private markets, private credit, in particular – they are a wonderful place to get really strong returns that are uncorrelated to some of that market noise. On the other hand, investors do need to be careful there too because when something is the topic du jour, you may see new managers enter that may not have the track record and the discipline across the cycle.
Can you tell me about one or two of your flagship products and who they are best suited to?
The folks we target really for our investments are those approaching retirement or in retirement. We have lots of young people investing with us as well, but that’s where our real strength is.
Our 12-month term account has over $10 billion in assets under management and has been performing for investors like a metronome since 2002. More recently, we launched a US private credit strategy. The opportunity for investors is first and foremost to diversify their sources of income away from just the Australian economy, and to invest in what in the US now is a bipartisan policy, which is the rebuilding of middle America.
Most recently, we are just about to go live with the Australian Private Credit Fund, which is investing in both of those two underlying funds and it’s giving investors an opportunity to invest in a wonderfully diverse source of income, and they can invest in that via the stock exchange.
Just on the latest one that you are listing, you raised $300 million for that. You obviously were watching volatility in the US to time it right, but you decided to go full steam ahead. Can you tell me about the decision-making process around the timing of this?
It is true that some or our advisers said to us about six weeks ago that maybe we should put the pen in the pocket for a little while and just wait until the end of the year. We talked to our investors though and there was real appetite for that investment.
We wanted to make ourselves available for investors who want to invest on the stock market. And we backed our investors to come in and support this. As it turns out, we were oversubscribed. We did the cornerstone raising in under 24 hours, so we were overwhelmed with interest, which was wonderful to see, and in due course, at some point over the next 6-12 months, we’ll be back into market and give other investors an opportunity to participate as well.
You have plans to grow La Trobe Financial’s assets under management from $20 billion to $55 billion in the next five years. What’s the plan of attack?
We are seeing about $3 billion a year in net inflows coming into our existing funds already. We are deploying about $1 billion a month in investible capital into our various strategies. So in some ways there’s the run rate, but we can also see an extraordinary growth opportunity ahead as we bring new products to our investors.
We’ll be launching a real estate strategy soon, an infrastructure strategy will follow later in the year. We’ll be doing more listed vehicles as well.
Remember that the Australian investor is the world’s second most wealthy. Median household wealth in Australia is number two so our investors are wealth and they are aging and they are looking for retirement focused investment solutions and there is not a lot of opportunities available in the Australian market. So we are seeing an enormous growth opportunity ahead of us.
Blackstone bought La Trobe Financial in 2017 and then Brookfield bought it in 2022. Now it has been lined up to be sold again. You’ve been through all this. Tell me what is it like now, and what it’s like to go through this wholesale process.
It’s very exciting actually. Brookfield at the moment are doing a strategic review. That may or may not end up in a sale and we’ll go through the process.
What does it mean for management? It means just for a moment, you step out of the business and you check all of your disciplines and your hygiene. You have the lawyers, accountants and tax advisers come through. Is the plumbing right? Have you adapted to all the evolving regulations in those areas? Is the business in a really strong, sound position? That the first thing.
Then the second thing is you look at the strategy. Are we addressing the extraordinary opportunity for us? As a management team, we want to take La Trobe to its full potential. That means from time to time, you want to step out of the business and have this moment to check and see are we doing everything right? Is there anything more we could and should be doing?
So whether this process ends up in a sale or not, it’s an incredible discipline for the management team. And I’ve got to say, we’ve done this a number of times in the past, this management team, and every time we’ve emerged stronger.
What keeps you up at night? What is the most stressful part of it all?
At a business level, you have all of the perennials – it’s a heightened cyber risk environment, you are always looking at opportunities for markets to turn haywire, and there are evolving regulatory environments.
I think there is a bigger, fundamental concern though that hopefully many Australians are sharing. As a nation, do we have the appetite to compete? Are we trying to regulate risk completely out of the environment? Are we so focused on holding on to what we’ve got that we’re not building stuff for the next generation, and the generation that comes after that, and all of those new Australians who come to this country looking to share in the amazing lifestyle that we’ve built.
In the short to medium term, the economy in Australia is performing really well versus most of the rest of the world. We say Australia is the lucky country but the harder we work, the luckier we get. And the fundamental question for Australia now is do we have the hunger to grow that pie, to include more people?
For more information, visit latrobefinancial.com.au, and don’t forget to watch the full video.