By Craig Simpson
Each quarter we take an indepth look at the major KiwiSaver providers and provide an over-view of how the KiwiSaver schemes have performed compared to their peers and market benchmarks.
This time around we are also providing an early look at some of the performance numbers for the first quarter of 2013.
At first glance, Tower has outperformed its new owner Fisher Funds in the Conservative and Growth funds over the short term (1yr - 3yrs).
In the Growth fund category, out of these three managers Milford's Active Growth Fund is the clear winner.
Over the last 12 months to 31 March 2013, Milford's return is 11% ahead of Tower and 13% ahead of Fisher Funds.
It is pleasing to see that when compared to last quarter's results, almost all of the funds are showing improved returns across the various time horizons.
To calculate these initial returns we have simply used published unit prices and annualised the change in the unit price.
This enables us to provide you with a sneak peek into the latest results of how your fund may have performed.
The return data is before tax (at the investor's personal tax rate) and after fund management fees have been deducted.
These returns may vary slightly from those published by the managers due to rounding and/or the additional adjustments made by some managers to account for taxable income and tax credits under the Portfolio Investment Entity (PIE) regime.
As more data and information comes to hand, our more complete analysis will be posted on the interest.co.nz website so keep a look out for these over the coming two to three weeks.
The arrows in the table indicate whether the returns are above, below or roughly the same as those returns calculated for the previous quarter (i.e. as at 31 December 2012).
| Fisher Funds (31/3/2013) | 1yr | 2yrs | 3yrs | 4yrs | 5yrs |
| % | % | % | % | % | |
| Conservative Fund |
8.6  |
6.3  |
5.9 |
4.6 |
3.7 |
| Growth Fund |
12.7 |
3.4 |
5.6 |
15.1 |
8.0 |
| Balanced Fund (50/50 blend of Conservative & Growth) |
10.7 |
4.9 |
5.8 |
7.5 |
5.9 |
Our previous story covering Fisher Fund's KiwiSaver returns for 31 December 2012 can be found here.
| Milford (31/3/2013) | 1yr | 2yrs | 3yrs | 4yrs | 5yrs |
| % | % | % | % | % | |
| Balanced Fund |
18.9 |
11.4 |
9.3 |
6.9 |
5.5 |
| Active Growth Fund |
25.8 |
16.2 |
12.3 |
14.7 |
13.0 |
| Conservative Fund* | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a |
* this fund has not been going for a full 12 months yet.
Our previous story covering Milford's KiwiSaver returns for 31 December 2012 can be found here.
| Tower (31/3/2013) | 1yr | 2yrs | 3yrs | 4yrs | 5yrs |
| % | % | % | % | % | |
| Preservation Fund |
3.5 |
3.1 |
3.2 |
3.2 → |
3.9 |
| Cash Enhanced Fund |
7.9 |
6.5 |
5.9 |
7.0 |
5.4 |
| Conservative Fund |
8.8 |
6.8 |
6.4 |
8.8 |
5.7 |
| Balanced Fund |
11.8 |
6.7 |
6.5 |
10.2 |
5.0 |
| Growth Fund |
14.4 |
7.0 |
6.6 |
12.2 |
4.0 |
| Equity Fund |
12.6 |
3.2 |
4.6 |
11.7 |
1.5 |
Our previous story covering Tower's KiwiSaver returns for 31 December 2012 can be found here.
With the Fisher Funds and Tower deal having recently been completed it will be interesting to monitor whether the Tower Conservative and Growth funds continue their recent short term outperformance compared to the comparable Fisher Fund portfolios or whether under the new structure the returns merge closer together.
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