The country’s fourth-largest pension fund says it supports controversial dual-class shares for ASX-listed companies as a way of enticing more founders to bring their businesses to a sharemarket that some fear is in structural decline as long as there are appropriate safeguards.

UniSuper chief investment officer John Pearce is the most influential public figure to back the market operator’s push to reconsider dual-class shares, which give founders or controlling shareholders greater voting power and control over a company compared to all the other investors in it.