sign up log in
Want to go ad-free? Find out how, here.

Civic Assurance's KiwiSaver results show just how volatile returns have been over the past five years

Investing
Civic Assurance's KiwiSaver results show just how volatile returns have been over the past five years

The latest data released for KiwiSaver performance as at September 30, 2012 is from Civic Assurance.

Civic Assurance's KiwiSaver scheme (SuperEasy) is open to Local Government and related company employees and their immediate families.

The SuperEasy KiwiSaver scheme offers members a choice of five main strategies including a lifestages portfolio (Automatic Fund) which sits alongside more traditional funds.

Each strategy has a responsible investment mandate whereby an average of 10% of the international shares into socially responsible investments.

Outside of a specifically designated socially responsible investment or ethical fund it is unusual to find such a restriction within KiwiSaver schemes.

The fund's international equity exposure is predominately unhedged (approximately 66% for the Growth fund), however for the more conservative strategies the hedging exposure increases to approximately 50% of the total allocation. 

SuperEasy is a low cost provider who outsources the management of the investment portfolios to ASB and AMP. 

The provider lists only two sets of charges in their investment statement: An administration fee of $4.50 per month and an annual management fee of 0.5% pa of the member's account balance. Normally you would expect to see additional charges such as portfolio management fees, external fund manager fees and trustee fees. It appears the scheme provider is absorbing these additional charges within their current fee structure, effectively enhancing returns to investors.

The last 12 months the only fund to stand-out performer has been the Automatic Fund (20 year old) with a return of 13.2% per annum. This fund is the first of the 'lifestages funds' offered under the SuperEasy brand and has the highest exposure to shares, which over the past 12-months have out-performed other investment asset classes and hence the strong performance relative to the other portfolios.

At the time of writing the five year data and unit pricing was not available so we are unable to report on this or calculate the returns. We do however have annual returns for each calendar year to 30 September and these are shown below. 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.)

Civic Assurance KiwiSaver Scheme
(30 Sept 2012)

2007
p.a.
2008
p.a.
2009
p.a.
2010
p.a.
2011
p.a.
2012
p.a.
Automatic Fund            
     Age 20 4.2% -11.8% -6.3% 3.9% -4.6% 13.2%
     Age 30 4.8% -11.5% -4.1% 4.9% -2.8%  12.3%
     Age 40 5.3% -9.3% -1.8% 6.0% -1.4% 11.3%
     Age 50 5.7% -7.3% 0.8% 7.3% 0.0% 10.5%
     Age 60 5.6% -4.6% 2.8% 7.9% 1.1% 9.6%
     Age 70 5.5% -1.3% 4.2% 6.7% 2.0% 7.5%
     Age 80 5.0% 2.3% 6.4% 6.4% 2.5% 5.6%
Conservative* n/a 2.2% 3.8% 6.8% 3.1% 7.2%
Income 4.5% -4.3% 5.5% 7.5% 1.2% 9.8%
Balanced 5.7% -11.2% -4.4% 7.3% -0.7% 11.3%
Growth 6.5% -15.8% -7.4% 5.4% -4.0% 12.6%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* The Conservative Fund began in 2008.

 

More detailed performance reporting can be found here ».

We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment.

Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.