Funds fail to beat three-year results

Friday 7th May 2004

Although New Zealand wholesale superannuation fund managers have now recorded their fourth consecutive quarter of positive returns, their results for the past three years were down on the previous three.

The latest Mercer Investing Consulting survey shows the median return for the three-year period to March 31, 2001 was 8% a year. In contrast, the median return for the three-year period to March 31, 2004 was 3.8% a year.

In March 2001, BT Funds Management was the highest- performing manager, with a return of 9.4% per annum. In the March 2004 survey Arcus was the highest-performing manager with a return of 6.1% per annum, while BT dropped to eighth position. In contrast, Tower ranked seventh of the managers in the March 2001 survey but is the second-highest performing manager in the current survey, returning 5.5% per annum over the past three years.

Guardian Trust Funds Management achieved the highest return for the quarter with 3.7%, followed by Tower Asset Management with a return of 3.4%. The median return for the quarter was 3.1%.

Returns for the past 12 months have ranged between a gross return of 25.7% from Arcus to a 15.0% return from BNZ Investment Management.

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