Morningstar today published results of the Morningstar® Australian Superannuation Survey, providing comprehensive coverage of the performance of Australian-offered retirement savings vehicles to 31 March 2016.
The Survey includes both commercial for-profit, industry superannuation, and MySuper options. Morningstar classifies funds according to a proprietary classification system created to facilitate meaningful peer-relative comparisons.
Key Findings
Australian superannuation growth funds generally recorded gains over March. The median fund returned 1.6 percent for the month. Individual results ranged from 2.6 down to 0.1 percent. AustralianSuper Conservative Balanced was the best-performing fund for the year within our superannuation multisector growth category, returning 2.0 percent. Energy Super Balanced secured second place with 1.0 percent, followed by REI Super (0.8 percent), Optimum (0.0 percent), and HESTA (-0.3 percent). Median results over the longer term were 8.1 percent over the three years, 7.6 percent over the five years and 4.7 percent over the 10 years to 31 March 2016.
The best-performing balanced (40.0 – 60.0 percent growth assets) superfunds over the year to 31 March were AustralianSuper Stable (2.8 percent), Energy Super Capital Managed (1.8 percent), and Optimum (0.2 percent).
Growth assets produced mixed results over the month. Global listed property was the best-performing growth asset class (7.7 percent), followed by Australian equities (4.8 percent), Australian listed property (2.4 percent), and global equities (-1.0 percent).
Multisector growth superfunds’ average allocation to equities at 29 February 2016 was 55.2 percent, 27.2 percent Australian and 28.0 percent global, while the average property exposure was 8.5 percent. Defensive assets totalled 23.5 percent on average (10.5 percent domestic bonds, 6.3 percent international, and 6.7 percent cash).
