Research company, Chant West, has found that Australian super funds have achieved positive returns for the second consecutive year.

 

According to Chant West, early estimates suggest that the median growth fund (61 to 80% allocation to growth assets) will post a return of about 9% for the year to 30 June.

 

Chant West principal Warren Chant said that for much of the year it looked likely that the final return might be as high as 10%, but that was before the wobbles set in over the final quarter.

 

“Of course, some funds will have performed better than others. We’re expecting that performance in our growth category will range between 7% and 12.5% for the financial year”.

 

“It’s important to keep in mind that the performance target for these funds is generally to beat inflation by an average of 3.5% a year. Inflation has been running at about 3.5%, so the target has been about 7% and the median fund has beaten that fairly comfortably for the past two years.

 

“After falling 27% during the GFC, growth funds have now returned 30% since the end of February 2009. In normal times that would be quite impressive, but the damage done by the GFC has still not been fully repaired, and a further 6% is still needed to get back to the pre-GFC levels achieved in late October 2007.”