Elia added that the fund continues to invest with a relentless focus on net returns for members.
Hits and misses
Mano Mohankumar, senior investment research manager at fund researcher Chant West, said the better-performing funds in 2021 were generally those that had higher asset allocations to listed shares, particular international, and to private equity – a stand-out performer that delivered returns of more than 40 per cent.
Mohankumar says traditional defensive sectors, such as bonds and cash, were the weakest performers, so keeping a low allocation to those would have helped performance. Cash had a return of zero while Australian and international bonds fell 2.9 per cent and 1.5 per cent, respectively, he says.
Australian shares gained 17.5 per cent in the year, while international shares surged a whopping 24.3 per cent in currency hedged terms.
Listed real assets had a strong year, with Australian and international listed property surging 27 per cent and 28.6 per cent, respectively. Listed infrastructure returned 17 per cent.
Kirby Rappell, executive director of fund researcher SuperRatings, says super returns should always be viewed over the long term, rather than on a one-year basis, as that is what matters to fund members.
“While it is interesting to see which funds performed well over the year, this needs to be considered in relation to performance over longer time periods,” he says. “That way, members can see whether their fund is a consistently strong performer – that’s what really counts”, Rappell says.
Over seven years, Hostplus’ Balanced option also came out on top of the performance tables, with an average annualised compound return of 9.7 per cent. AustralianSuper Balanced was next at 9.6 per cent, followed by Sunsuper For Life Balanced with 9.2 per cent.
Over 10 years, Hostplus’ Balanced option returned 10.7 per cent, followed by AustralianSuper Balanced and UniSuper Accum (1) Balanced, each with 10.6 per cent, and Cbus – Growth (Cbus MySuper) with 10.3 per cent.
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Rappell says recent changes to the super rules mean it is more important than ever to check on your fund’s performance to see how it stacks up against its peers.
The federal government has helped with that by launching the long-awaited YourSuper fund comparison tool.
The recent introduction of the “stapling” changes by the federal government mean your fund will follow you when you change employers. Still, another fund can be chosen at any time.
Critics of the stapling measure have pointed out that members of poorly performing funds who do not switch to better performers will remain with the duds each time they change jobs, locking in the under-performance of their retirement savings.
Retirement savings bonanza as top super funds shine
Source: Philippines Alive
