Investments

Happy New Year everyone, and welcome to our latest performance update.

I’m really pleased to report that we’ve had a strong start to the 2022 financial year, delivering positive returns to members. For the six months to 31 December 2021, AustralianSuper’s Balanced option returned 4.98% in accumulation and 5.29% in Choice Income accounts.

While listed shares have been a star performer, the contributions to the Fund’s performance over the past six months, have been across many of the asset classes in the portfolio, especially among private markets. Private equity, infrastructure, property and credit have all provided valuable contributions to the overall return of the portfolio.

The recovery of economies around the world has helped lift investment markets, especially Australian and international shares. Recovering consumer demand, low interest rates and government stimulus have helped support strong earnings growth for many companies, leading to higher share prices. We’re now seeing labour shortages and supply chain breakdowns that introduce some volatility to the markets as investors try to work out when central banks might make changes interest rates to manage inflation.

As investment markets move through different stages, we maintain our focus on delivering strong long term returns for members. In line with this, the Fund continues to invest in private market assets with strong long-term growth potential. Recently, we acquired two property assets located in Sydney. Both are state-of-the-art, logistics development sites. In the infrastructure portfolio, the addition of Australia Tower Network and an increase in our investment in WestConnex and Peel Ports in the UK, are delivering value to the portfolio. The growing size of the Fund means we can invest your super in large scale assets that have the potential to bring you higher returns as well as support the growth of our economy.

In looking ahead, investment markets are expected to move out of the current growth cycle. As this happens, we will continue to monitor and analyse market conditions and adjust the portfolio accordingly, to protect and grow your super over the long-term.

If you’d like to know more about our outlook for the economy and investment markets in the months ahead, visit the investments section of the AustralianSuper website. You can hear from experts across the Fund share their views.

Thank you for joining me today.