Equity Bull Market Buoys Australian Super Funds’ 2024 Returns

Australia’s superannuation funds turned in double-digit returns for the 2024 calendar year thanks to the bull market in stocks, according to the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia, with some achieving nearly 12% for their balanced fund offerings.

Rest Super reported an 11.19% return for its default option in 2024, the second consecutive year of positive returns. Rest attributed the strong performance largely to its investments in local and international equities.

Notably, the fund has averaged 8.34% in annual returns since its inception in 1988, beating the ASFA’s calculated average for balanced options of about 7% over a 10-year period. Rest’s high-growth option and its sustainable growth option also benefited from the strong performance of stock markets, returning 14.09% and 14.08%, respectively, for the calendar year.

“Strong investment returns over the short term help support our long-term investment goals,” Rest Interim Co-CIO Kiran Singh said. “Global share markets were standout performers—especially the U.S.—during the past year. With several central banks moving to ease monetary policy and markets responding positively, we anticipate this should continue in 2025. Equity valuations are elevated but, for now, they are supported by continued economic resilience and earnings growth.”

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Additionally, Australian Retirement Trust’s balanced offering returned 11.9% in 2024; its high-growth option returned 13.7%, with CIO Ian Patrick highlighting strong returns from both domestic and global share markets as “key drivers” for the performance.

Further, ASFA revealed high-growth options also garnered “exceptional results,” with annual returns reported as high as 15%.

AMP’s MySuper life stage 1970s investment option returned 15%, which has the most funds under management among the other offerings in the stable; it has a high-growth asset allocation.

Meanwhile, MySuper’s 1950s and 1960s options returned 9.8% and 11.5%, respectively. Similarly to outcomes at Rest, AMP CIO Anna Shelley said the investments in the U.S. and global equities aided the positive outcomes.

“The quality of returns reflects strategic allocation and active performance by our equity and credit managers to asset classes and our overweight to stocks, which we expected to perform strongly during the year, and this strategy has been successful,” Shelley said. “We’ve been increasing our exposure to private debt and diversified credit, which have delivered high and consistent returns. Our previous relatively low allocation to direct property has allowed us to increase this exposure by buying from motivated sellers at deep discounts.”

Shelley also added that the groundbreaking investment in bitcoin through its Dynamic Asset Allocation program has made a “positive contribution.”

Meantime, ASFA CEO Mary Delahunty said she believes the resounding performances result from the “sophisticated portfolio construction from superannuation funds’ expert investment teams that deliver terrific long-term results regardless of what is happening on the markets,” in statement.

This article appeared in our sister publication, Financial Standard, which, like CIO, is owned by ISS STOXX.

Tags: AMP, Anna Shelley, Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia, Australian Retirement Trust, Ian Patrick, Kiran Singh, Mary Delahunty, Rest Super, Superannuation Funds

A group of UnitedHealth Group Inc. shareholders, including the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, announced on Wednesday that they filed a proposal for the 2025 proxy season calling for the health care provider to report on the public health and macroeconomic risks of delaying or denying health care services to patients.

“Specifically, shareholders recommend that the report evaluate how company practices impact access to healthcare and patient outcomes, including analyses of how often prior authorization requirements or denials of coverage lead to delay or abandonment of medical treatment, and serious adverse events for patients,” wrote the ICCR in a statement.

The investor coalition of more than 300 institutional investors with a collective $4 trillion in invested capital is specifically calling for the company to report these risks as a result of the “company’s practices that limit or delay access to healthcare.” The ICCR, in a statement, wrote that UHG’s policies may boost short-term revenues but provide long-term risks, which could threaten investor portfolios.

“Overall performance of financial markets determines 75-94% of portfolio returns to broadly diversified investors,” an ICCR report on UnitedHealthcare Group macro-economic risks stated. “As a result, the health of the economy is key to the long-term performance of their portfolios. UHG, the largest health insurer in the U.S. and largest employer of physicians, influences healthcare outcomes through its impacts on healthcare and treatment accessibility and affordability. Given UHG’s size and broad reach—‘more than 5 percent of U.S. gross domestic product flows through the company’s systems every day’—shareholders fear UHG’s practices may impair the value of their portfolios”.

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The investor group is concerned about the effects on the financial markets of UnitedHealth’s practices, including;

Authorization requirements that result in delayed or avoided medical care;

Denying patient care to increase profit; and

Increasing premiums and out-of-pocket costs, which hinders economic growth.

UnitedHealth Group “has been in the media and legislative spotlight for some time given its market dominance, aggressive marketing of Medicare Advantage and questionable use of [artificial intelligence] algorithms to deny care to patients,” said the proposal’s lead filer, Timnit Ghermay of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary congregation, in a statement.

The December 2024 murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson put an additional spotlight on the company, one of the companies that has denied the most insurance claims.

“As the tragic murder of [United Healthcare’s] Brian Thompson made evident, public outrage over the exorbitant costs and restricted access to health care has reached a dangerous level in our country,” Ghermay continued. “Our proposal suggests some introspection … that will help the company and all its stakeholders thrive.”

In the shareholder proposal, the ICCR noted that patients often have to cover health care costs by taking on credit card debt, cutting back on discretionary spending and draining their retirement savings, actions which negatively impact the economy.

“Worsening health outcomes, loss of wages or underemployment, low credit ratings due to inability to pay medical debt, and the associated inability to attain stable housing, may all lead to depressed worker productivity, reduced consumer spending power, and greater reliance on public assistance programs which are clear drags on the broader economy,” according to the shareholder proposal.