Top 10 Super Funds In Australia

Last Updated on 8 March 2024 by Ryan Oldnall

What are the Top 10 Super Funds In Australia? In this article, we will rank publicly available Super Funds by their membership size, assets under management, and their average 5-year and 10-year performance.

Australia has many Industry Super Funds, which are run for the profit of members. Industry Super Funds typically have lower fees and return strong long-term performances.

All information presented in this article is from The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA). This statistical information was published in the Annual Fund-Level Superannuation Statistics to June 2022, released in December 2022) [1].

Top 10 Super Funds In Australia By Assets Under Management

Top 10 Super Funds In Australia- Assets Under Management

When it comes to who is the largest super fund by assets under management, two funds come out on top. Australian Super and Australian Retirement Trust have grown to be Australia’s biggest.

Australian Super has long been the biggest fund in Australia in terms of assets under management. This figure stands at $271 billion which is over 2.5 times more than 3rd place, UniSuper.

It has investments in several sectors with significant interests in large-scale Airports and Motorway infrastructure. Australian Super can provide members with exposure to asset classes other, smaller super funds may not be able to.

Similarly, Australian Retirement Trust has grown to become one of the biggest Super Funds. Australian Retirement Trust was only established in February 2022 following the merging of SunSuper and QSuper.

As detailed in my Australian Retirement Trust Review, ART intends to become one of Australia’s largest funds by assets. In a recent announcement, Australian Retirement Trust discussed its intention to have $500 billion worth of assets by 2030 [2].

Australian Retirement Trust has several significant mergers in the pipeline which will move them closer to this target milestone [3],[4].

Some of the other larger funds listed include UniSuper, which was previously restricted to those working in tertiary education and academia. They like many others have since opened up their membership to the wider public.

Similarly, other Funds such as Cbus, HESTA, and REST are all industry-specific super funds that are available to the wider public. Cbus is an industry super fund for the building and construction industry, whereas HESTA is dedicated to Australia’s health and community services.

Retail Employees Superannuation Trust (REST) is a dedicated retail sector-specific super fund that many young Australians have had their first job would be familiar with. Like most other industry super funds their membership is available to the wider Australian public.

Top 10 Super Funds In Australia By Membership

Top 10 Super Funds In Australia - Membership Size

Australian Super comes out as Australia’s largest Super Fund provider. As of when this information was gathered, Australian Super had 2.88 million members.

According, to the Australian Bureau of Statistics(ABS), in June 2022, Australia had 25,978,935 living in the country [5]. This means that the Australian Super membership base accounted for 11.07% of the entire population.

In Second Place is Australian Retirement Trust with 2.22 million members. As stated previously, Australian Retirement Trust plans to grow its membership base significantly in the years to come.

It may one day overtake Australian Super as the largest fund by members in the future. When looking at the Top 10 Super Funds by Member count, the total comes to 14,057,436 people.

This means that 54.11% of the population belongs to one of these Top 10 funds. With both Australian Super and Australian Retirement Trust accounting for nearly 20% between them.

Top 10 Super Funds In Australia – 5-Year Average Performance

When evaluating 5-Yearerage 5-year performances, it is important to note that this is an average taken across all of the Super Funds available investment options.

Hostplus comes out as the highest performer of the 5-year average with 6.61%. Australian Super is close behind with 6.58% and Smart Future Trust rounds out the top 3.

The average performance return was 6.17% across the Top 10 super funds. The Difference between the Top 1 and Top 10 performers was 0.81%

According to The Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA), the average Super Fund returned 5.8% over 5 years as of June 2022. This means that its real returns vs CPI was 3.1% [6].

Top 10 Super Funds In Australia – 10-Year Average Performance

Similar to that of the 5-year performance average. The 10-year performance is an average taken across all of the Super Funds available investment options.

When evaluating the average 10-year performance of the Super Funds, Hostplus is again the top performer.

Hostplus 10 year average performance across its options was 8.74% followed closely by UniSuper with a return of 8.70%.

The average performance return was 8.22%% across the Top 10 super funds. The Difference between the Top 1 and Top 10 performers was 0.95%

According to The Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA), the average Super Fund returned 8.1% over 10 years as of June 2022. This means that its real returns vs CPI was 5.7% [6].

Summary

Australian Super remains the largest fund by both membership count and assets under management. Australian Super has long been a household name and continues to provide sound investment returns for its members.

Hostplus has had the strongest average returns across its investment options when looking at both the 5 and 10-year performance windows.

In my REST Super Review, I discuss in-depth Hostplus Vs REST Super on both their performance returns and fees.

Australian Super was within the top 3 performers when looking at both the 5 and 10-year periods.

In my Australian Super Review, I perform a deep-dive on Australian Super and evaluate its performance on fees and performance returns against the likes of Australian Retirement Trust.

Furthermore, I have reviewed many Super Funds including, UniSuper, Aware Super, Australian Super, Australian Retirement Trust, and Vanguard Super which was not discussed having only launched in October 2022.