SUPER FUNDS HIT $1.23 TRILLION

THE Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has announced that total assets held in the country’s superannuation funds have grown to an estimated $1.23 trillion.

APRA released the figure in its December 2009 Quarterly Superannuation Performance results, showing an increase of 3.3 per cent or $39.0 billion in total funds.

Industry funds recorded the highest growth of each sector with 4.3 per cent ($9.1 billion) to total $218.9 billion.

Public sector funds followed with a 3.3 per cent ($5.5 billion) growth to $172.6 billion while retail funds grew by 2.6 per cent ($8.7 billion) to $345.7 billion, and corporate funds by 1.6 per cent ($0.9 billion) to $59.9 billion.

Employers contributed $15 billion and members $3.6 billion to funds with at least $50 million in assets while other contributions, including spouse contributions and government co-contributions, totalled $596 million.

During the December quarter, retail funds received 32.7 per cent ($6.3 billion) of total contributions, industry funds 31.5 per cent ($6.1 billion), public sector funds 29.2 per cent ($5.6 billion), and corporate funds received 6.5 per cent ($1.3 billion).

The combined rate of return was 2.3 per cent while the rate of return for corporate, industry and public sector funds was 2.5 per cent, and retail funds 2.1 per cent.