Super funds defy odds to deliver positive returns for fourth year

Yasmine Raso

Senior Journalist

21 July 2026

Superannuation funds have managed to weather challenging market conditions marked by heightened volatility and persistent inflationary pressures to post their fourth consecutive year of positive returns for members, pushed along by a strong performance in international shares.

According to the latest analysis from Chant West, the median growth fund (measured by approximately 61 to 80 per cent in growth assets) returned 9.5 per cent for the last financial year, following 10.4 per cent in FY25, 9.1 per cent in FY24 and 9.2 per cent in FY23 for a cumulative total of 44 per cent.

Chant West’s Head of Super Investment, Mano Mohankumar, said while international shares undeniably propelled returns into positive territory, they were complemented by strong performance across the majority of asset classes.

“International shares surged 25.5% in hedged terms, supported by continued enthusiasm for AI and robust corporate earnings,” he said.

“Despite the Australian dollar’s appreciation against most major currencies, the return in unhedged terms delivered an impressive 17%. International shares have the highest allocation within a typical growth fund, accounting for about 31% on average.

“By comparison, Australian shares, which on average has a weighting of 24%, returned a modest 6.2% over the year.

“Generally speaking, the better performing funds were those that had higher allocations to international shares, particularly where a larger proportion of that exposure was currency hedged.

“Diversification also provided some benefit given the wide dispersion of returns across asset classes, though it would have helped if you had lower allocations to traditional defensive assets.

“Australian bonds, international bonds and cash returned 1.5%, 2.9% and 3.9%, respectively, making them among the weakest performing asset classes over the year. The only asset class to finish in negative territory was Australian listed property, which declined 1.8%.

“In contrast, international listed real assets performed exceptionally well, with international listed infrastructure and listed property returning 17.2% and 14.3%, respectively.”

“We’re still collecting final returns for unlisted asset classes such as unlisted property, unlisted infrastructure and private equity. However, we expect infrastructure returns to finish the year in the 7% to 9% range, and estimate that private equity delivered gains of 8% to 11%. Unlisted property continued its recovery and is likely to post returns in the 5% to 7% range.”

Chant West’s analysis also identified the top performing growth funds in the 10 years to 30 June, emphasising the importance of long-term performance for super fund members.

The top 10 performing funds were:

• Hostplus Balanced (8.9 per cent)
• Brighter Super Balanced (8.8 per cent)
• Australian Retirement Trust Balanced (8.7 per cent)
• AustralianSuper Balanced (8.5 per cent)
• Vision Super Balanced Growth (8.4 per cent)
• UniSuper Balanced, HESTA Balanced Growth, legalsuper MySuper Balanced (all on 8.3 per cent)
• Aware Super Balanced (8.2 per cent)
• Cbus Growth (MySuper) (8.1 per cent)

However, Mohankumar also cautioned members against expecting such strong results of over nine per cent as the ‘norm’.

“The typical long-term return objective for growth funds is to beat inflation by 3.5% p.a., which translates to roughly 6% p.a. Since the introduction of compulsory super, the annualised return is 8% and the annual CPI increase is 2.7%, giving a real return of 5.3% p.a. – well above that 3.5% target,” he said.

“Even looking at the past 20 years, which includes three major share market downturns – the GFC in 2007-2009, COVID-19 in 2020 and the high inflation and rising interest rates in 2022 – super funds have returned 6.9% p.a., which is still comfortably ahead of the typical objective.

“Returns are important but so is risk, and most funds also set themselves a risk objective. Risk is typically expressed as the likelihood of a negative annual return, and typically a growth fund would aim to post no more than one negative return in five years on average.

“This objective would translate to no more than six negative years over the 34 financial years shown. As it turns out, there have only been five negative years, so the risk objective has been met as well as the performance objective.”