Superannuation ratings house SuperRatings has named the 10 best performing funds for 2022-23. Is your fund on the list?
ESSSuper has shone, delivering the overall highest return rate on its balanced option for the 2022-23 financial year.
With accounts under management totalling $34 billion, ESSSuper saw a return of 13.3 per cent, ahead of Vision Super and Brighter Super, which reported returns of 11 per cent and 10.6 per cent respectively.
Rounding out the top five for balanced options were UniSuper and Equip Super, both with substantial returns of 10.3 per cent and 10.1 per cent.
SuperRatings defines balanced funds as ones that invest between 60 and 70 per cent of their portfolio in growth assets.
Daniel Selioutine, ESSSuper group executive for investments, told Money Management his fund’s high performance could be traced back to its multi-year program of “reorienting the portfolio towards areas of competitive advantage”.
“Our shorter-term performance is explained by our positioning in equities and bonds, however, our dedicated investment team remains firmly focused on delivering longer-term investment outcomes to members,” he says.
SuperRatings points out that funds faced unprecedented conditions this year, yet managed to deliver competitive outcomes. It found funds that committed between 60 and 76 per cent of their portfolio to growth assets tended to bring solid results.
A longer-term outlook
But how do super funds rank for performance over the past 10 years? Analysis from Chant West shows Hostplus’s growth option was the highest performer for the decade, with a remarkable average annual return of 8.9 per cent – well above the industry average of 7.5 per cent.
In second spot was the nation’s largest super fund, AustralianSuper, with its growth option delivering 8.6 per cent per annum; while in third position was the Australian Retirement Trust (ART) growth option at 8.4 per cent.
Rounding out the top five performers over the past decade were the UniSuper Balanced option (also 8.4 per cent), and the Cbus Growth (MySuper) option with 8.3 per cent returns.
Chant West’s list of top performers indicates that success isn’t necessarily limited to the biggest funds.
Seven of the top 10 performers can be categorised as larger funds, but some smaller funds have also demonstrated impressive long-term returns.
Mano Mohankumar, Chant West’s senior investment research manager, says fund size shouldn’t be a limiting factor for performance.
“While we absolutely believe there are benefits of having scale,” he says, “some small to medium-sized funds have also invested wisely.”
How did your super fund perform over the past year? How has it tracked over the past decade? Let us know in the comments section below.
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There seems to be a significant difference between the perfromance of accumulation funds and their respective pension paying funds, the latter being lower. It would be easy to be hoodwinked into moving to another pension fund based on these claims only to find that the claimed performance was only for the accumulation fund.
Any worthwhile comparison should include the performance of both types of funds for each company and the mix they were achieved on.