Superannuation fund performance is not reliant on the size on the fund, industry super fund for real estate, REI Super, believes.
Citing rating house, SuperRatings, the fund said smaller funds with total assets under $2 billion performed better than the largest funds over the 10-year period to January 2016.
REI Super chief executive, Mal Smith, said funds with an all-profits-to-members model often came out ahead, because of a high quality investment strategy, which was more important than the size of investment.
However, last month, research house Chant West found industry funds only marginally outperformed retail funds in February, producing returns of -0.4 per cent and -0.5 per cent respectively. It found the outperformance was thanks to higher allocations to unlisted assets.
“Strong long-term performance is the result of an agile and rigorous investment strategy,” Smith said.
“And contrary to conventional wisdom, when it comes to superannuation funds, this data confirms that size doesn’t always deliver economies of scale. We believe a virtue of our size is that we can be quite active in our asset allocation in volatile markets, and we are not so big that we will move the markets in which we invest.
“The funds that are performing well are in fact the ones with a high quality investment strategy and process.”
