Cbus’ new chief investment officer, Brett Chatfield, has detailed the sectors that helped the $85 billion fund’s performance in the financial year 2022–23.
Its Growth (MySuper) investment option has returned 8.9 per cent over the last financial year. The three-year rolling average performance for the option is 7.76 per cent.
Chatfield, who took over the CIO role last month from Kristian Fok after having held the role in an interim capacity, said Cbus has seen strong results from global and Australian equities, infrastructure, and credit.
“The significant volatility we have seen over the last three years has continued this financial year. The ongoing invasion of Ukraine, various banking crises, persistent high global inflation and rising rates and political risks in the UK and US markets have helped the volatility roller-coaster to continue,” said Chatfield.
“We’ve seen strong results across global and Australian equities, infrastructure, and credit this financial year. Clearly the property sector has had headwinds, but the high-quality and diversified nature of our property portfolio has limited the impact on overall portfolio returns.”
He said the fund is defensively positioned to prepare for the chance of a global recession and ongoing volatility.
“Over the last six months the likelihood of a global recession has increased, equity markets are still pricing in a rosy outlook and as a result we remain defensively positioned with an underweight to equities and elevated cash holdings,” said Chatfield.
“The volatility roller-coaster of the last few years shows just how important it is to view super as a long-term investment and be careful of overacting to the various peaks and dips of the market.”
Cbus has $85 million in funds under management and more than 875,000 members.
Several super funds have issued their financial performance this month; AustralianSuper returned 8.2 per cent, Australian Retirement Trust returned 10 per cent, HESTA returned 9.5 per cent, and Aware Super returned 10.7 per cent.
Funds have until the end of July to report their financial results that will then be used for APRA’s annual performance test at the end of August.
