Top super funds revealed

7 out of 10 top funds are retail funds and only 3 out of 10 are industry funds. Makes me wonder how they adverstise currently that industry funds typically outperform retail? 

Morningstar’s Australian Superannuation Survey interim results have revealed what it has found to be the best performing super products across both the retail and industry categories

The report covers the performance of Australian-offered retirement savings vehicles to 31 August 2012, and found that the best-performing ‘Multisector Growth’ funds (60-80% growth assets) over the year were as follows:

• BlackRock Diversified Growth (10.1%). 
• Invesco Diversified Growth (9.8%). 
• Legg Mason Balanced (9.1%). 
• Perpetual Balanced Growth (9%). 

Over the three years to 31 August, the following products took the top spots in the Multisector Growth category:

• REST Core (7%). 
• Australian Super Conservative Balanced (6.7%). 
• Schroder (6.5%).  

In the ‘Multisector Balanced’ category (40-60% growth assets), the report’s pick of the best performers over the year were:

• AMP Moderate Growth (8%). 
• REST Super Balanced (7.4%). 
• CFS Moderate (7.4%). 

Key findings

One of the report’s significant findings was that the majority of funds in the Multisector Growth category failed to meet their objective of outperforming CPI plus 3% per annum over a five-year period.

The report noted that, while the GFC played its part in preventing the funds from meeting this goal, the median manager returned 7.6% over the year to 31 August 2012, which was cited as “a positive step towards achieving the stated performance objectives”.

For the month of August, the Multisector Growth category reported a median manager return of 1.8%, with individual results falling between 1% and 3.7%. Median manager results were annualised at 4.9% over three years,  -0.2% over five years, and 5.5% over the 10 years to 31 August. 

Growth assets produced sound results over the month of August 2012, said the report. Australian shares, as measured by the S&P/ASX300 Accumulation Index, rose 2.1%, international shares by 4.5%, and global property securities by 0.6%.

Australian property securities lost ground with a return of -0.1% (S&P/ASX 200 A-REIT Index). Results for defensive assets over the month to 31 August 2012 were more subdued: Australian fixed income returned 0.6%, global fixed income 0.5%, and cash 0.3%.

The above survey only looks at retail/industry blended funds and the ‘IPS model portfolio/s were not included, however these internal portfolios have generally outperformed the relative index in the past.