New research points to country’s worst and best super funds

OnePath has been dubbed the worst-performing super fund in the country, according to new research by StockSpot for its annual Fat Cat Funds Report.

The research compared over 500 multi-asset investment options from the 90 largest super funds to find the worst performers, or ‘Fat Cats’, and the best performers, or ‘Fit Cats’.

Nine funds offered by OnePath were named as Fat Cats along with five funds from Colonial First State, and four funds each from AMP and ClearView.

“These poorly performing super funds are still gobbling up fees and delivering poor returns for their members. Fees are like termites eating away at our returns, leaving you not very much in retirement,” said Stockspot founder and CEO, Chris Brycki.

“All super fund members should check to see how much in fees they are being charged by their super fund. If it’s more than 1.5 per cent, then you are probably being ripped off.”

For the research, funds were assessed on how they performed after fees and compared to other investment options of similar risk over five years.

OnePath-OptiMix Balanced was reported to be the worst-performing fund in the aggressive growth category with a five-year return of 2.88 per cent p.a. followed by OnePath-Managed Growth (3.13 per cent) and OnePath-Active Growth (3.17 per cent).

The three best-performing funds in the same category were MLC-Horizon 7 Accelerated Growth Portfolio (9.30 per cent) along with Qantas Super-Aggressive, and Qantas Super-Glidepath: Take-Off (both 8.60 per cent).

Qantas Super had a total of eight funds that were deemed to be Fit Cats — ahead of UniSuper and HESTA with four Fit Cat funds each — and AustralianSuper and IOOF, who each had three.

“Despite the importance of superannuation, the information provided by superannuation funds is often murky, complex, and tough to obtain,” said Mr Brycki.

“Collectively, these 500 funds have around $2 trillion in funds under management and cover more than 20 million superannuation member accounts.”

Qantas Super-Growth and Qantas Super-Glidepath: Altitude (both 7.50 per cent) as well as HESTA-Sustainable Growth (7.03 per cent) were on top in the growth category.

Zurich-Balanced (1.89 per cent), OnePath-OptiMix Moderate (1.96 per cent), and Energy Industries Superannuation Scheme (EISS)-Conservative (2.31 per cent) were at the bottom.

Two Qantas Super funds (Qantas Super-Balanced and Qantas Super-Balanced) were also the best-performing balanced funds with a return of 6.10 per cent followed by AustralianSuper-Conservative Balanced, which returned 5.51 per cent.

Zurich-Capital Stable only managed to deliver a return of 0.59 per cent, the worst-performing balanced fund along with OnePath-OptiMix Conservative (1.13 per cent) and ClearView-IPS Active Dynamic 50 (2.05 per cent).

Jon Bragg

Jon Bragg is a journalist for Momentum Media's Investor Daily, nestegg and ifa. He enjoys writing about a wide variety of financial topics and issues and exploring the many implications they have on all aspects of life.