Our investment mission is to deliver reliable long-term returns to members through a suite of investment options that allow for all levels of risk tolerance, including a MySuper option. Underpinning this is a set of eight investment beliefs we use when making decisions and setting our investment strategies.

Beliefs important to us when investing

1. Asset allocation is the key determinant of investment risk and return.
2. Diversification is important for risk management.
3. Illiquid assets are expected to deliver a return premium above liquid assets, all else being equal.
4. Risk and return can vary over time and are partially exploitable by those with competitive advantages.
5. The level of investment governance resources needs to be commensurate with investment strategy complexity.
6. Active management can add value where markets exhibit persistent, or at times transient, pricing inefficiencies.
7. Costs matter and need to be effectively managed.
8. Environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors have an impact on long-term investment outcomes.

Read more about our beliefs, and how they work with our investment strategy.

Investing for growth but also protecting the downsides

We don’t lose sight of the fact that we want to generate good returns to help you save more for your retirement, and we also don’t take lightly the importance of being conservative in order to help protect the super you’ve already built up, particularly in times of poorer market performance.

Strategic asset allocation – the building blocks of investment returns

One of the key drivers of returns generally relates to the amount of risk different funds and trustees are prepared to take to achieve their investment objectives. This “risk appetite” is usually expressed through the strategic asset allocation (SAA) for each investment option.

Comparing fund returns isn’t always apples to apples

Directly comparing the investment returns of Fund A with those of Fund B can be common but there can be risks in doing this simply based on percentage numbers alone, or rankings based on these figures.

Our focus is on producing sustainable long-term returns that achieve the established investment objective for each of our investment options, and at the same time reduce downside risk, where possible. This generally means that we will have less exposure to share/equity markets within our SAA than many of our peers.

This position may mean that when sharemarkets produce strong positive returns, we expect to underperform compared to peers. Our SAA is more conservatively balanced and is less likely to achieve the same results as more aggressive products during periods of strong sharemarket performance.

However, this relative position can turn around, especially after large sharemarket downturns. We saw this happen following the Global Financial Crisis and onset of COVID-19, when our more defensive positioning resulted in achieving stronger returns than some of our peers.

Our investment option objectives and intentions

Each of our options has a different objective. By focussing on meeting the stated objective rather than on relative or peer comparisons, we aim to give you more certainty around the likely returns for each option, which in turn can help in choosing the investment options to suit your needs.

Keeping your best interests as our focus

Working with our investment advisers, we look to ensure that our strategies continue to be designed and managed to meet the investment objectives that have been established. We are comfortable that our investment beliefs and strategies will continue to deliver the right member outcomes over the long term. 

Important note: You should remember that returns are not guaranteed and may be positive or negative. Past investment performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.