Morningstar has published results of the Morningstar® Australian Superannuation Survey, providing comprehensive coverage of the performance of Australian-offered retirement savings vehicles to 31 January 2013.
The Survey includes both commercial for-profit and industry superannuation options. Morningstar classifies funds according to a proprietary classification system created to facilitate meaningful peer-relative comparisons.
Key Findings
- Growth superannuation funds made a strong start to 2013, the median fund returning 3.0 percent over the month of January. Individual results fell between a low of 1.6 percent and a high of 5.0 percent. This was the eighth consecutive month of positive performance for funds in the Morningstar Multisector Growth category, and the highest monthly median result for this category since October 2011. Longer-term annualised results for the median fund were 13.7 percent over one year, 6.8 percent over three years, 2.4 percent over five years, and 6.7 percent over the 10 years to 31 January 2013.
- Growth assets contributed to the strong results for multi-sector options over the month of January. Australian shares, as measured by the S&P/ASX300 Accumulation Index, rose 5.0 percent, international shares gained 4.6 percent, Australian property securities 4.4 percent, global property securities 3.6 percent. Cash returned 0.3 percent, but other defensive assets did not do particularly well ? Australian fixed income was down -0.2 percent, and international fixed income down -0.3 percent.
- The funds in the Morningstar Multisector Growth category held an average allocation to equities of 57.8 percent at the end of December, split between Australian equities (31.8 percent) and international equities (26.0 percent), while the average allocation to property was 8.6 percent. The average allocation to defensive assets totalled 22.8 percent (10.1 percent domestic fixed interest, 5.7 percent international fixed interest, and 7.0 percent cash). Legg Mason Growth had the highest allocation to Australian shares (48.8 percent), followed by Legg Mason Balanced (42.7 percent), and BlackRock Scientific Diversified Growth (41.3 percent). The highest allocation to international shares was recorded by Zurich Managed Growth (37.8 percent), followed by CFS Growth (34.5 percent), and Care Super Balanced (31.6 percent).
- The best-performing Growth superfunds over the three years to 31 January 2013 were REST Super Core (8.9 percent), followed by AustralianSuper Conservative Balanced (8.2 percent), Legg Mason Balanced (8.1 percent), Invesco Diversified Growth (8.0 percent), and Schroder Superannuation (7.7 percent). Over the five years to 31 January, Schroder Superannuation (5.5 percent), followed by REST Super Core (5.2 percent) and Care Super Balanced (4.1 percent) come out on top.
- Among the options in the Multisector Balanced category (40.0 ? 60.0 percent growth assets), the best performers over the three years to 31 January 2013 were AustralianSuper Stable (7.4 percent), followed by Care Super Conservative Balanced (7.4 percent), and Asgard Moderate (7.2 percent).