Vision Super has shared the factors that led to its being ranked as the second-best performing Balanced fund by SuperRatings for the financial year 2022–23.
The $12.8 billion fund was ranked highly in SuperRatings’ annual ranking after its Balanced Growth MySuper option saw returns of 10.9 per cent.
Over 10 years, it has returned 8.1 per cent per annum.
This positioned it in second place of all Balanced options, behind only ESSSuper Basic Growth that returned 13.3 per cent.
Michael Wyrsch, chief investment officer, said: “That option had a very good year. We had very little private equity, we had not much in property compared to other funds which was very helpful and we also had a wide range of our managers perform well which boosted performance.
“Performance was very strong from an absolute and a relative perspective.”
As of 31 March 2023, the Balanced Growth option held 8.6 per cent in property which is divided between 3.3 per cent in listed property and 5.3 per cent in unlisted property that is managed externally.
It also holds 14.4 per cent in infrastructure, 51.8 per cent in equities, 21.3 per cent in fixed income, and 3.7 per cent in cash.
Looking at the year ahead, Wyrsch said: “It’s always hard but we are seeing continued strong economic growth, seeing a lot of interest rate rises and it may be a more difficult year ahead but we aren’t expecting to see terrible things or a deep recession.
“I would say a tougher year than last year but not as bad as it could be.”
Vision Super is set to merge with Active Super and the two funds have signed a merger heads of agreement that will create a combined fund with $27 million in funds under management and 170,000 member accounts.
Stephen Rowe, current chief executive of Vision Super, has been appointed as CEO of the merged fund, which first announced its intention to merge back in June 2022.
The merger is expected to be completed around mid-2024.
