KiwiSaver

Milford Asset Management’s KiwiSaver funds enjoyed a better performance than all other KiwiSaver funds in the March quarter but returns were generally poor, the latest Melville Jessup Weaver survey shows.

Milford Asset Management’s KiwiSaver funds enjoyed a better performance than all other KiwiSaver funds in the March quarter but returns were generally poor, the latest Melville Jessup Weaver survey shows.

ANZ enjoyed a rare quarter with its growth and balanced KiwiSaver funds second-best performers for the quarter after spending long periods languishing at or near the bottom of the performance tables.

Milford’s $6.53 billion growth fund was the best performer in that category but still produced a negative 0.2% return for the quarter while the median return for all 15 growth funds was negative 2.8%.

Milford’s growth fund was sixth best performer over one year but best over three, five and 10 years.

“Predictably enough, investors with higher policy weights to growth assets will have had a disappointing quarter,” said MJW’s William Nelson.

“Most of the funds in this group still have a respectable allocation to global bonds (median 9.3%) which helped to dull the pain of their share portfolios,” Nelson said.

“Many of the more conservative KiwiSaver funds managed to avoid losses this quarter entirely,” he said.

The median return from balance funds, which have between 50% and 65% in growth assets, was still negative 1.7%, as was the return from moderate funds, those with 30% to 49% in growth assets, which was negative 0.8%.

But the median conservative fund, those with between 15% and 29% in growth assets, eeked out a positive 0.1% return.

Milford’s balanced, moderate and conservative funds were the best performers in their categories with a positive 0.3% return, positive 0.6% and positive 1.3% respectively for the quarter.

ANZ’s almost $5 billion growth fund was the second best performer with a negative 2.2% return, though it was still second-last performer over the year ended March with a 2.8% return compared with the median 5.9%.

ANZ’s $3.59 billion balanced fund also ranked second in the quarter with a negative 1% return but was 15th out of the 16 balanced funds for the year and the worst performer over three, five and 10 years.

Generate’s $674 million moderate fund was the worst performer in that category for the quarter with a negative 2.1% return but it was eighth over the year with a 5.4% return, just shy of the median.

The worst performing growth fund in the quarter was Generate’s $1.8 billion fund with a negative 4.3% return but it was ninth over the year, second over both three years and 10 years.

Booster’s $383 million balanced fund was the worst performer in that category in the quarter with a negative 2.4% return and it ranked 12th over the year, 10th over three years, 13th over five years, but fourth over 10 years.

Booster’s $51 million conservative fund was the worst performer out of 18 funds with a negative 0.3% return and it was second last in the year with a 4.6% return.

ANZ’s $1.49 billion conservative fund was the fifth best performer in the quarter but the worst for the year with a 4% return.

Advisers will need to do plenty of client hand-holding as balances increasingly battle volatility and managers delve into more illiquid assets, according to research house Morningstar.

Advisers will need to do plenty of client hand-holding as balances increasingly battle volatility and managers delve into more illiquid assets, according to research house Morningstar.

As global markets have reacted to the uncertainty of US President Trump’s tariff war, the message to members has been to keep calm and carry on, and advisers play a key role in delivering the message to clients, says Morningstar Global Data Director Greg Bunkall told advisers at the QPR Monsters in March roadshow.

“It’s really important you stay on top of why that’s happened, why they should stay invested in a particular strategy and manage their behaviours around switching and withdrawing,” he told  participants in a recent adviser event. 

The size of invested capital in KiwiSaver now outweighs the amount of money coming into the scheme, says Bunkall, and overall, portfolios have become riskier with the move to make “balanced” the default fund, and with more aggressive funds on offer in the market.

The allocation decisions KiwiSaver managers are making will have an impact on the role of the adviser tool.

“Alternatives are on the way. There is not a provider that I speak to at the moment who is not thinking about their strategy for how to get into the alternatives space with their KiwiSaver line up.”

“So portfolios will become potentially more volatile and they may become more illiquid so you have to be able to understand and explain that.”

Morningstar looks at fees in the KiwiSaver market as part of its regular research and despite competition ramping up, there’s no sign of movement.

“There’s not a lot of price pressure at the moment in KiwiSaver,” says Greg Bunkall.

“People aren’t necessarily moving to find cheaper products because it’s clearly set around that 80 basis points number as an average.

“From an advisor perspective, that 80 basis point number is something to sit in your mind to say if I’m allocating to a fund that is more than 80 basis points I just need to make sure I can defend that to a client, explain why I think that option is better for them.”

There remains no real incentive for clients to direct extra contributions into KiwiSaver, so long as New Zealand is still a global outlier in its choice of tax structure around retirement savings, according to one financial advisory firm leader.

There remains no real incentive for clients to direct extra contributions into KiwiSaver, so long as New Zealand is still a global outlier in its choice of tax structure around retirement savings, according to one financial advisory firm leader.

With the government in the early stages of considering what the future of KiwiSaver looks like, and whether that means higher minimum contribution rates, tax seems to be the elephant in the room few are talking about, says Become Wealth Chief Executive Joseph Darby.

“When you're at peak earning capacity, you're getting taxed at 33% and 39% and then the investment returns are getting hammered, that's the 28%, so you're kind of stunting the growth.”

“I think that’s a bit of travesty in some ways.” 

New Zealand’s TTE (Taxed, Taxed, Exempt) structure around KiwiSaver, where contributions are pulled from taxed income, investment earnings are taxed, and withdrawals at retirement are generally tax-free, differs from the likes of the UK, US, Canada and to a large degree, Australia, where retirement savings are EET (Exempt, Exempt, Taxed) or at least have significant tax advantages.

Joseph Darby says KiwiSaver needs an overhaul, and as part of the process, the government should consider reversing the tax structure to make it more comparable with the international standard.

“I mean, what's the tax benefit? $521 a year? Most people, over a lifetime, that's going to add up to nothing. It's not going to make any material difference.”

The lack of a tax-exempt threshold for contributions has an effect on the nature of advice the firm offers clients.

“If you won a million bucks today, would you put it in KiwiSaver? No, because it’s illiquid and you don’t get a decent premium for that illiquidity.”

“In other countries, you see a financial advisor, they'll always say, you max out your retirement accounts first and then start looking at something else, whereas we'll just say, look at, in most cases, somewhere else that's actually liquid that you can get if you want to start a business or, buy another property, or buy a bach, or do something else when life changes.”

As KiwiSaver balances continue to swell the scheme is becoming a cash cow for investment managers, prompting one industry observer to question why there is not more downward pressure on fees.

As KiwiSaver balances continue to swell the scheme is becoming a cash cow for investment managers, prompting one industry observer to question why there is not more downward pressure on fees.

“Some of these managers are generating $100 million in fee revenue now, but we haven't really seen fees go down to what you'd expect in a much larger market like Australia or the US, with that sort of revenue stream,” says Paul Brownsey, who co-founded Pathfinder alongside John Berry and was its CIO before leaving the company a year ago.

The December quarter Morningstar KiwiSaver survey, released in February, offers the latest estimates of providers’ annual fee revenue although the research house warns against relying on the numbers as proof of how much money a particular fund manager is making from KiwiSaver. However, Morningstar calculates that the five largest KiwiSaver providers, ANZ, ASB, Fisher, Westpac and Milford will collect more than $650 million in fees in 2025 from KiwiSaver members, at an average fee of around 0.80 of a cent per dollar invested.

“There's a massive discrepancy between the lowest fee KiwiSaver operators and the highest fee KiwiSaver operators,” says Brownsey.

“So the obvious question to ask is, does it make sense for investors to pay higher fees to anyone?

“The answer is quite nuanced, but what people need to do is look at not just the headline fee, but also at the returns after fees are taken out.”

Brownsey says with almost guaranteed 6% funds growth each year from contributions alone, and the fact members tend to stick with their provider, KiwiSaver has become a dream for fund managers.

Pressure to reduce fees has previously been driven by the FMA, he says, but the regulator seems to have pulled back.

“There should be more pressure on fees, especially for those KiwiSaver providers who have scale. 

“They don't have to add people to their team, because they've already got critical mass. I mean, it's just a layup, really.” 

Paul Brownsey says some KiwiSaver providers do a better job than others of justifying their fees, but it is something every provider needs to consider. Prescribed disclosure requirements around fees means providers are all offering the same or similar explanations.

“Just because it's there doesn't mean it's easy for people to understand or get their heads around.

“It would be great to see research on the returns for the different KiwiSaver managers after fees,” says Paul Brownsey.