Long-term focus pays off for Brighter Super members

Brighter Super’s long-term strategy has helped the fund deliver double-digit returns in eight accumulation and pension options. 

In a statement on Tuesday, Brighter Super said its MySuper option returned 10.89 per cent, exceeding its average return for the past three years (10.26 per cent), five years (8.22 per cent), and 10 years (7.23 per cent).

“This is a great result for members, given the volatility the markets have experienced through the year. Brighter Super members have also benefited from their third successive year of administration fee reductions,” said Mark Rider, chief investment officer.

Among accumulation options, Growth (11.65 per cent), Balanced (10.54 per cent), and Indexed Balanced (12.21 per cent) also recorded double-digit returns for the year. 

In the pension phase, Growth (12.82 per cent), Balanced (11.49 per cent), Conservative Balanced (10.09 per cent), and Indexed Balanced (13.63 per cent) also recorded double-digit returns for the year.

Underpinning these results are strong returns in domestic and global equities, Rider said. 

“We’re encouraged by the strength of returns over the past year across all of our diversified investment options and more recently the recovery since the volatility sparked by the US trade tariff announcements,” the CIO explained. 

“Our long-term strategy, which combines active management with broad diversification, is designed to navigate changing market conditions and protect members’ retirement savings and grow over the long-term.”

Born out of a merger between LGIAsuper and Energy Super in 2021, Brighter Super told Super Review earlier this year that, unlike its peers, it has not set ambitious plans to manage more of its assets internally.

“Our view is that while there’s been additional scale benefits from the mergers that we’ve undertaken … we don’t see that there is a competitive advantage for us to actually insource,” Rider said in May.

The fund, he said, will continue outsourcing asset management, with a primary focus on building the overall portfolio, refining asset allocation, and collaborating with their consultant JANA on manager selection and strategy.

“We find [that is] potentially a competitive advantage by continuing to use best of class managers externally, and also, given our somewhat smaller size, there are strategies which we can participate in that some of the bigger funds, it’s not worth their while,” Rider said.

“We see the best way to do that is by partnering with investment managers.”