Of all the super funds in Australia, one is outperforming the pack by a significant margin.
AustralianSuper has posted an 11.08 per cent return for the past financial year – beating the typical return of 9.1 per cent produced by the top 50 superannuation funds.
And this performance is no one-off. AusSuper’s balanced investment option, worth around $140 billion and where 90 per cent of its members have their money, has returned an average annual return of 10.51 per cent over the past five years.
SuperRatings estimates the average returns over the same period at around 8.7 per cent.
With around 2.2 million members, AusSuper is Australia’s largest super fund.
The fund’s deputy chief executive, Mark Delaney, said the drivers for the balanced option’s high performance were more focus on listed equity markets and less on lower-returning defensive asset classes such as fixed income and cash.
According to SuperRatings’ chief executive officer Kirby Rappell, investment in infrastructure and other “alternatives” also continued to deliver good returns for AusSuper.
While AusSuper has performed strongly for half a decade, Mr Delaney is cautious about fund members’ expectations, saying that although the fund has seen a prolonged period of strong growth, there’s always the possibility that future markets could be more less productive.
“Members should always be focused on longer-term results as fluctuations in returns are expected,” said Mr Delaney.
He also said that global markets had delivered better results than everyone expected, with political uncertainty and trade protectionism not having “a sustained negative affect on markets”.
“We will be keeping an eye on key policy-makers, particularly the US Federal Reserve, in relation to interest rates, while also monitoring any action in relation to tariffs or other measures which may affect global trade,” he said.
Are you happy with your super fund? Would news such as this encourage you to switch funds?
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