Eighth successive year of positive returns

Superannuation funds are likely to record an eighth successive financial year of positive growth, according to Chant West.

Chant West director, Warren Chant said that almost against all odds super funds were poised to post double digit returns for the 2017 financial year.

“This is an impressive result, especially since we’ve been through an extended period of economic and political uncertainty,” he said.

According to Chant West, with just two business days remaining, early estimates suggest that the median growth fund will post a very healthy return of 10.5 per cent for 2016/17, while some of the better-performing funds may deliver as much as 12.5 per cent.

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“As always happens, some funds have performed better than others over this shortish period,” Chant said. “This year’s top funds look likely to report returns as high as 12.5 per cent, while even the bottom end of the range is likely to be a respectable 7.5 per cent. “

He said the better performing funds would be those that had higher allocations to listed shares and to unlisted assets generally.

“It will also have helped to have a lower exposure to listed property, bonds and cash,” Chant said.

 “Looking at the two major industry segments, we expect industry funds to finish the year ahead of retail funds by about 0.7 per cent,” he said. “This may be a surprise given that industry funds generally have lower allocations to listed shares, which have been the strongest performing sectors over the year.  However, this was more than offset by the fact that they also have much lower allocations to bonds and little exposure to listed property, which have been the weakest sectors along with cash.”