Jeff Bresnahan
Superannuation ratings house SuperRatings has confirmed the grim news on investment returns for fund members, releasing data today suggesting that the average balanced style portfolio has suffered a 6.4 per cent loss over the last financial year.
The data, released by SuperRatings managing director Jeff Bresnahan, served to confirm predictions the company had been making in the media over the past few weeks.
However, Bresnahan said that putting aside the 2007-08 returns, the news was not all bad for superannuation fund members in circumstances where members in balanced option investments had still seen their superannuation assets appreciate by over 60 per cent in the past five years on investment performance alone.
“To put this into some perspective, most funds will have stated that their objective was for growth of around 40 per cent over the same period, representing CPI plus 3.5 per cent,” he said.
Bresnahan said there was no cause for alarm at the negative results and that for a balanced option, a negative return could be expected on average once every six years.
