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AMP's KiwiSaver results show outsourced Balanced fund better than in-house Aggressive fund

Investing
AMP's KiwiSaver results show outsourced Balanced fund better than in-house Aggressive fund

The latest data released for AMP's KiwiSaver is as at 31 March 2013. Our previous story covering returns as at September 30, 2012 can be found here.

AMP have now completed the amalgamation of the old AXA products and rebranded these as AMP Wealth KiwiSaver. There have not been any changes to the product range and for now the default status previously afforded to AXA has been retained - although due to be reviewed over the next 12 months.

AMP and AMP Wealth products have not typically been market leaders but have provided investors with solid returns across most of their funds over the past five years.

The best performing fund over the last five years has been a fund managed by competitors OnePath (AMP OnePath Balanced Plus Fund). This funds have been closely followed by the AMP Conservative Fund and in fact there is only three basis points (0.03%) difference between them (6.71% p.a. vs 6.68% p.a.). Making an adjustment for risk, the AMP Conservative Fund will have come out on top.

As a general observation the AMP strategies have outperformed the AMP Wealth strategies (foremerly AXA), however some of the AMP Wealth strategies were clear winners over a four year time frame. Differences in asset allocations, underlying fund managers, currency hedging and fees will invariably accoount for the variances.

Over the past 12 months the AMP OnePath Balanced Plus Fund (14.55% p.a.) has outperformed all other funds under the AMP umbrella, with the closest competition coming from the AMP Aggressive Fund (13.93% p.a.).

The 'stock standard' AMP Balanced Fund has performed reasonably well compared to the other Balanced funds offered to investors and would fall in the top half of the sector leader board based on results reported to-date.

It is intriguing and somewhat confusing to see a fund (AMP OnePath Balanced Plus Fund) with considerably higher exposures to cash and fixed income assets, outperfoming a predominately equity based fund during a period where global stock markets have rallied strongly, and in some cases provided investors with double digit returns.

Another interesting observation is how the AMP Cash Fund has outperformed the AMP Default Fund by 0.42% per annum since inception in October 2007. The roles are reversed across every other time period however, and the Cash Fund outperformance could be seen as a bit of an anomoly.

Below is a table of the longer term performance of the AMP and AMP Wealth 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.)

 

AMP KiwiSaver Scheme
(31 March 2013)
1 year
(p.a.)
5 year
(p.a.)
Since inception (p.a.)
Cash Fund 3.3% 4.5% 4.8%
Default Fund 6.2% 4.8% 4.4%
Conservative Fund 7.9% 6.7% 5.8%
Moderate Fund 9.1% 5.7% 4.7%
Moderate Balanced Fund 10.3% 5.1% 3.6%
Balanced Fund 11.6% 5.2% 3.3%
AMP OnePath Balanced Plus Fund 14.6% 6.7% 5.0%
AMP Tower Balanced Fund 11.0% 5.2% 4.0%
AMP Tyndall Balanced Fund 11.8% 4.8% 2.8%
Growth Fund 12.7% 3.6% 1.4%
Aggressive Fund 13.9% 2.9% 0.4%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AMP Wealth KiwiSaver Scheme (formerly AXA)
(31 March 2013)
1 year
(p.a.)
5 year
(p.a.)
Since inception (p.a.)
Cash Fund 3.1% 4.0% 4.2%
Income Plus Fund 7.0% 5.85 4.7%
Conservative Fund 7.5% 6.0% 5.4%
Balanced Fund 10.2% 5.1% 2.8%
Growth Fund 12.2% 3.8% 0.8%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More detailed performance reporting can be found here ».

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