By John Stensholt
Olympic officials plan to launch a $100m investment fund by the end of the year to raise money for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander athletes, which will be managed by some of Australia’s best known fund managers.
The Australian Olympic Indigenous Athlete Fund will be designed to generate $1m each year and use the same strategy as the ASX-listed Future Generation investment company, which allocates 1 per cent of its assets annually to charity, and potentially to a similar fund being planned for rugby union.
Geoff Wilson of Wilson Asset Management and Regal Fund Management’s Phil King are among the renowned stockpickers to have expressed interest in managing the money for the Australian Olympic Committee, and others such as David Paradice of Paradice Investment Management are also likely to be approached.
The Indigenous Athlete Fund would invest in equities and the fund managers would forgo their fees, effectively providing about 1 per cent of the invested amount to flow to the fund and then be distributed to its causes annually.
AOC president Ian Chesterman said the fund was being created to enhance opportunities and pathways for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander athletes in Olympic sports, including athletes following in the footsteps of current Indigenous Olympic representatives such as boxer Marissa Williamson Pohlman, and also to promote bigger representation of First Nations athletes at Olympic Games leading up to the Brisbane 2032 Games and beyond.
“What we have done is sounded out a number of high-net worth individuals, so it may not necessarily be a public fund to start with, to provide a basis of funding to get the fund moving,” Mr Chesterman told The Australian.
“The early conversations we have had has indicated that there is some good interest in this. It is a cause that is near and dear to us, and we are confident that it is also a cause that will resonate with investors.”
Mr Chesterman said the AOC board was still working through key aspects of the fund, including whether it would concentrate on Australian equities or international stocks, or potentially a combination of both, as well as who exactly will manage the fund and contribute to it.
“But we have a strong desire to get it going by the end of this year and it will be a priority of ours immediately post [the] Paris Olympics,” Mr Chesterman said.
The Indigenous Athlete Fund forms a central part of a strategy the AOC is launching this year that targets more funds to be raised that can flow directly to Olympic athletes.
The AOC already provides funding to high performers via its Medal Incentive Fund, from which gold medallists in Paris will receive $20,000, silver medal winners $15,000 and bronze medallists $10,000.
Incentive payments are also awarded in non-Olympic years, usually for top-three placings at world championships or equivalent competitions, and the AOC will pay out about $7m in the four years including Paris.
The AOC has also established a fund with the Australian Sports Foundation through which tax-deductible contributions can be made to match the incentive payments for athletes who win medals in Paris.
Mr Chesterman said a wealthy individual, who he would not name, had already made a “substantial” donation to the medal fund via the ASF, and he was hopeful others would donate either during or after the upcoming Olympics.
The AOC is also launching the Aspiring Australian Olympic Athlete Fund, which will also be run through the tax-deductible ASF and will allow donors to make contributions to specific up-and-coming athletes who are competing to make future Games squads.
“We will set that up to really start driving things into the Los Angeles Olympics [in 2028] and have philanthropists big and small able to donate to athletes of their choice,” Mr Chesterman said.
“It will be through the ASF but we will bring our [Olympic] five rings marketing to it, which hopefully adds a bit more to motivate people to backing these athletes.
“The medal incentive funding really rewards past performance, but this is for anyone on the pathway to raise money and utilise our marketing.
“Some athletes in some sports can make major money, but it tends to be only a few athletes in those bigger sports and most others are doing it with blood, sweat and tears and for the love of what they are doing.”
The AOC itself is spending $25m to send the Australian team to Paris, using some of the proceeds from its own Australian Olympic Foundation that was started with proceeds from the Sydney Olympics in 2000.
The foundation now had $182m in assets as at the end of May, Mr Chesterman said, and had paid out $160m in distributions to the AOC in almost 25 years – which meant the AOC itself had not required any government funding in that time.
But Mr Chesterman said the AOC would not get a similar windfall from Brisbane 2032, given changes made by the International Olympic Committee to Games hosting contracts.
For Sydney, 10 per cent of profits went to the IOC, 10 per cent to the AOC, in its own right, and 80 per cent to the foundation.
The Brisbane 2032 contract has 80 per cent of any profit going to the IOC and the Queensland government being reimbursed for any advancements to the local organising committee, with the AOC sharing any surplus after that.
Profits also depend on revenue targets being achieved. The revenue projections for the 2032 Olympics include $1.7bn from national sponsors and ticket sales of $1.1bn.
“We are very aware we need to use this fund to last the AOC forever,” Mr Chesterman said.
“It needs to be there, it is a generational fund and it needs to serve athletes for many generations to come.”