The latest data released for KiwiSaver performance as at September 30, 2012 is from Mercer and MercerSuperTrust.
Mercer is part of the global Marsh and McLennan group and has been responsible for advising on and managing some of the largest superannuation savings schemes in New Zealand for over 35 years.
Under the Mercer brand the provider manages $783 mln across a total of 15 schemes. The SuperTrust offering is promoted as a workplace savings scheme as opposed to being offered to your average KiwiSaver member. The returns from the two funds are very similar as readers will note below.
In addition to the main schemes, there is a further three externally managed schemes offered under the Mercer banner. However, as the manager does not report returns on a pre-tax and after fees basis we are unable to provide a true comparison of returns and have excluded these from our comparison table below.
Mercer is one of the 6 designated default fund providers and their Conservative Fund is the second largest fund in its peer group. Under the combined Mercer brand they rank 7th in total funds under management (FUM) within KiwiSaver. Eighty percent (80%) of their total FUM in KiwiSaver are held in their default fund.
Over the last 5 years Mercer have performed strongly in the Cash, Conservative and Fixed Income sectors. Comparing Mercer's diversified and growth fund results against their respective peer groups shows the manager's performance is amongst the best. One reason may be that they have allocated a lower proportion of growth assets to these funds than their peers. (The Mercer Balanced, SuperTrust Active, and SuperTrust Growth funds currently have growth assets of 62.8%, 63.3% and 74.7% respectively whereas other scheme growth funds have growth assets allocated closer to 80%.)
In terms of star performers over the past 12-months, the Mercer SuperTrust Shares Fund +14.42% per annum (Australasian equities) and Mercer SuperTrust Global Fund + 14.4% per annum (International equities) performed well compared to their peers.
Below is a table of the longer term performance of the Mercer and Mercer SuperTrust funds. The return data is before tax and after fees and is as published by the managers. (No adjustments have been made to take into account those additional fees which scheme providers may charge and which are not included in calculating the fund performance. We do make such adjustments, but they will not be included until the full benchmarking is published.)
|
Mercer KiwiSaver Scheme |
1 year (p.a.) |
5 year* (p.a.) |
Since inception* (1 Oct 2007) (p.a.) |
| Conservative Fund (default) | 7.3% | 5.4% | 5.4% |
| Balanced Fund | 9.6% | 4.5% | 4.5% |
| High Growth Fund | 11.7% | 3.4% | 3.4% |
| Cash Fund | 2.9% | 4.9% | 4.9% |
|
Mercer SuperTrust KiwiSaver Scheme |
1 year (p.a.) |
5 year* (p.a.) |
Since inception* (1 Oct 2007) (p.a.) |
| Conservative Fund | 6.6% | 4.7% | 4.7% |
| Moderate Fund | 8.7% | 4.9% | 4.9% |
| Active Balanced Fund | 9.5% | 4.5% | 4.5% |
| Growth Fund | 10.4% | 4.0% | 4.0% |
| High Growth Fund | 11.7% | 3.3% | 3.3% |
| Cash Fund | 2.9% | 3.2% | 3.2% |
| Fixed Interest Fund | 5.7% | 7.0% | 7.0% |
| Real Assets Fund | 9.9% | 1.8% | 1.8% |
| Trans-Tasman Fund | 14.2% | 4.1% | 4.1% |
| Global Fund | 14.4% | 2.5% | 2.5% |
* The various Mercer funds have not been going for a full 5-years and above return data has been calculated using monthly returns provided directly by the manager.
More detailed performance reporting can be found here ».
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