Annual ‘Fund Level’ Superannuation Statistics
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Annual Fund Level Superannuations Statistics
APRA have recently released their ‘Fund Level’ superannuation data for all funds. This for the most part, is for funds reporting to the end of June 2024.
APRA is changing their data points to improve transparency for each fund. The main changes include detailed expense breakdowns for each fund and quarterly asset allocation updates.
We have updated and created new dashboards for members that cover key data points for our readers. While these dashboards are comprehensive, they may not include all data from APRA. We have also summarised data by fund type, including Industry, Retail, Corporate, Public Sector, and SMSFs. Below is a summary of the highlights.
Investment Returns For One Year Favour Retail Funds - Dashboards 1 and 4
Retail funds have performed well recently. This success is most likely due to asset allocation (see more below). The median return for Retail funds (with at least $0.125 billion in Member Benefits and reporting to June 2024) is 9.1%. In comparison, Industry and Public Sector funds at 8.4%, while Corporate funds are at 8.1%.
For funds with at least $20 billion (which make up over 92% of Member Benefits), Retail funds dominate the top six positions (not shown - available on the dashboard). However, returns over five and ten years are less favourable for Retail funds. Over five years, the median return is 4.92% for Retail and 5.83% for Industry Funds. Over ten years, it's 5.24% for Retail and 6.93% for Industry Funds.
Snippet from Dashboard 1 - Members, Ave Balances and One Year Returns
*Member Benefits is an APRA term and the amount of assets available to members
Percentage Snapshot Data - Dashboard 2
SMSF’s hold 27% of all Member Benefits, followed by Industry Funds at 36%. Industry Funds hold 59% of all members.
Excluding SMSF’s Industry Funds hold 50% of all Member Benefits and 62% of all members. Retail funds hold 29% of Member Benefits 27% of members.
Excluding SMSF’s, AustralianSuper hold 13.06% of all Member Benefits and 15.21% of all members., followed by Australian Retirement Trust (ART) at 11.21% and 11.07% respectively. A gap thereafter to Aware Super at 6.76% and 5.44%.
The top 3 funds hold 31.03% of all Member Benefits and 31.73% of all members. In total there are 92 funds reporting.
Change In Member Benefits and Members Over The Year - Dashboards 5 and 6.
Despite Retail funds gaining better investment returns, the net change in Members Benefits for Retail funds increased by 14%, slightly down on Industry funds which is at 15%.
Notable changes by funds include ART up by 19% AustralianSuper at 14% and Host Plus at 22%.
In terms of actual members, Retail funds were down by (-3%) and Industry Funds up by +5%.
Flow Of Funds - Dashboards 7, 8 and 9.
The flow of funds can be a bit tricky to follow due to the activity of mergers and takeovers. Our estimates is that after allowing for successor fund transfers, the net flow of funds is approx positive $91.9 Bil with Industry funds holding the majority at $70.0 Bil.
As for flow of funds into and out (transfers) of SMSFs, Industry funds net loss of some (-$3.36 Bil) and Retail a net loss of (-$1.20 Bil).
Asset Allocation - Dashboard 10
The reporting for asset allocation is for September 2024. When looking at the key differences between Retail and Industry funds at the ‘core’ asset level:
Similar holdings of equity at 58.2% Industry funds versus 60.2% for Retail.
Infrastructure is at 10.6% for Industry funds and only 3.5% for Retail
Cash is 5.4% for Industry funds and 9% for Retail.
The dashboards allow users to view the allocations by all funds. The weightings for infrastructure, property and cash make for some of the more interesting reading. Some of the differences may be driven by the sheer size of the funds.
Expenses Including Financial Advice - Dashboards 11 and 12
APRA have pushed for full transparency on expenses and the level of detail provided is pretty much right down to the last dollar. They can be a bit confusing with certain activities being put into categories which may be surprising to the reader, along with many of the expenses being regarded as in sourced.
Some key takeouts:
On a per-member basis across all fund types for 2024, the total marketing expense (includes sponsorship and members campaigns etc) averaged $21. With Industry funds at $23 and retail at $17.
Some stand-outs - AustralianSuper only at $16, Unisuper at $58, Care Super at $61, Aventos at $111.
As for major sponsors (including in the total marketing expenses), Hostplus way out in front spending $13.69 Mil followed by Construction and Builders Union (CBUS) at $4.98 Mil
As for firms that may have benefited from the payments (see dashboard 12)
Google (Alphabet) claimed nearly $12 Mil directly and Meta just over $2.5 mil
Industry Super Australia is just over $18 Mil
Initiative Media Australia potentially $26 Mil (Initiative Media seems to be represented in three formats).
Financial Advice Fees - Dashboard 11
We will write some about the fees in another post. Key takeouts:
Wealth Personal Superannuation and Pension Fund (AMP Group) - total fees at $616.02 Mil followed Macquarie Super at $454.08.
For Industry / Public sector Funds, Australian Retirement Trust (ART) at $94.96 Mil closely followed by Aware Super at $90.87 and AustralianSuper at $67.45 Mil
For Intrafund Advice ART comes in at $42.92Mil followed by Hesta at $26.33 Mil and CBUS at $18.53 Mil.
There is a lot of detail in the data - if you need assistance to work through it all, please call or email using the options at our contact page
