Good returns for Crown investments

Crown Financial Institutions (CFIs) made strong returns in the nine months to March 31, largely because of the strong performance of global equity markets.

The report, published today by the Treasury’s Crown Ownership Monitoring Unit (COMU) showed most of the CFIs performed broadly in line with their respective benchmark or reference portfolios over the past five years.

The returns in the report are calculated before tax and after investment management fees.

ACC investment funds exceeded their benchmark by 1.5% a year over the five-year period, making it the best performing of the CFIs in the longer term.

The NZ Superannuation Fund was the best performing of the CFIs in the nine-month period to March 31, earning 23% returns.

Returns are calculated before tax and after investment management fees.

In total, the CFIs had investments worth more than $43.58 billion on behalf of the Crown, excluding $1.94 billion from the National Provident Fund, which is not included on the Crown’s balance sheet.

The Treasury’s first CFI quarterly monitoring report notes that investment strategies and objectives differ across each of the CFIs and each of them is managed independently.

Future reports will include analysis of longer-term performance and try to show the extent that investment performance is affected by investment decisions compared with market movements.

These quarterly reports build on the more detailed information that COMU publishes in its Annual Portfolio Report.

                                               Nine-month return to March 31                                 Size of fund (billions)
NZ Super Fund                                         23.0%                                                                       $18.8
ACC                                                             10.7%                                                                       $16.0
Earthquake Commission                          7.1%                                                                         $5.5
Govt Super Fund                                       15.5%                                                                        $3.3
National Provident Fund*                         6.6%                                                                         $1.9
Aggregate of all CFIs                                15.7%                                                                      $43.6
* National Provident Fund is excluded from total invested because it is not included on the Crown’s balance sheet.