Philip LaGreca

Self-managed super fund (SMSF) technology and administration provider SuperConcepts has relaunched their SMSF Investment Patterns Survey with findings for March 2022 after a harmonisation of internal systems.

The report presents a quarterly analysis of SuperConcepts’ client investments to get a closer insight into how SMSF trustees invest and to identify emerging investments trends.

The survey covers over 4,500 funds, a sample of the SMSFs administered by SuperConcepts, and the investment they held at 31 March 2022 which exceeds $7.5 billion in assets.

SuperConcepts Executive Manager Technical and Strategic Solutions, Philip La Greca, said one of the key takeaways from this survey is that almost 1 in 3 dollars are invested through pooled structures.

“The highest usage is in international sectors with over 75% of international equities and international fixed interest exposure is through Managed Funds and ETFs.

“This is reflected in the top ten pooled vehicles where eight are international products and four are ETFs.”

The findings also highlight the differences in SMSF investment allocations compared to that of APRA funds, some of which La Greca said were unsurprising.

“Cash is higher but, given the larger proportion of pension members, this is not really unexpected.”

The discrepancies can be attributed to the investment exposure granted to each fund type.

“Equities exposure is almost identical but the split between domestic and international highlight the limited ways SMSFs, and other retail investors, can access overseas markets.”

La Greca questions whether SMSFs have a greater exposure to real property, 16% vs 8.5%, because assets such as airports, toll road and ports are classified as infrastructure, 4.9% vs 9%, rather than specialist property by APRA funds.

Findings from surveys such as this are crucial to our understanding of the sector as there is limited regular statutory reporting by SMSFs.

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