Double digits elude super funds

Returns for median superannuation funds fell slightly short of double digits over the past financial year, with research house, Chant West, recording returns of 9.2 per cent for median growth funds.

This is the second year in a row Australian superannuation funds have posted positive returns following the period of negative returns brought about by the global financial crisis (GFC).

Chant West principal Warren Chant said that while for much of the year it appeared the final return would hit double digits, nervousness set in over the final quarter.

However, he said the 9.2 per cent median return represented a good result and a consolidation of the 10.4 per cent return recorded in the previous 12-month period.

“The GFC had a profound effect that will be felt for years in the performance tables,” he said. “It resulted in two consecutive years of negative returns, which is unprecedented.”

Chant said that after falling 27 per cent during the GFC, growth funds had now returned 31.5 per cent since share markets bottomed at the end of February, 2009.

“In normal times that would be quite impressive, but the damage done by the GFC has still not been fully repaired,” he said. “The median fund still needs to put on another 6 per cent to get back to the pre-GFC levels achieved in late October, 2007.”

Chant said industry funds had finished slightly ahead of retail master trusts over the period, returning 9.5 per cent versus 9 per cent — the eighth year out of the past 10 years that they had succeeded in doing so.

“Industry funds as a group finished slightly ahead of master trusts because they tend to have lower allocations to unhedged international shares and bonds, which were among the poorer performing asset sectors,” he said.