How we perform

Here’s how your investment options are performing.

At CSC, everything we do, including how we invest, is done with your future in mind. We are focused on achieving a sustainable financial outcome for you and do this by investing in high quality businesses and considering long-term risks holistically.

For more information about our investment strategy, see How we invest.

Awards and innovation

CSC recognised with Smooth Ride Award

Presented to the fund that has best weathered the ups and downs of the market while delivering strong outcomes.

Find out more

From our Chief Investment Officer, Alison Tarditi

Our performance

Our investment returns for the 10 years to 30 June 2023 for the Default, Balanced and MySuper Balanced options exceeded their objectives, despite historical highs in Australian inflation rates.

Read about our performance to 30 June 2023

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The objectives of your investment options

Different investment options have different levels of risk, and of course, return. Our investment options are designed for different people at different stages of life, and each have a different objective.

Balanced (Default)

Return objective: CPI +3.5% per year after fees and tax, over 10 years.

Our Balanced (default) option is true to label—its asset allocation has a balanced mix of growth assets and defensive assets. This option is specifically designed to maximise the likelihood that you will achieve a comfortable retirement income, while making sure your balance is resilient and sustainable. On average, our Balanced option takes less risk than other super funds¹.
Income focused

Return objective: CPI +1.5% per year after fees and tax, over 10 years.

Our Income focused option purposefully targets a lower level of risk compared to both the Balanced and Aggressive options, but still delivers very strong performance. Our Income focused option is designed to protect your balance, but also grow over time.
Aggressive

Return objective: CPI +4% per year after fees and tax, over 10 years.

Our Aggressive option accepts higher volatility compared to our balanced fund but only from targeted risks that we expect you to be compensated for taking while avoiding unintended risks and diversifying to reduce the impact from risks that simply cannot be avoided. The result is strong relative returns regardless of market direction. Our Aggressive option is a consistently strong performer compared to peers².
Cash

Return objective: Bloomberg AusBond bank index rate of return, net of fees.

Our Cash option focuses on preserving capital, so it’s expected to have lower risk and lower return compared to other options.

For more information about your investment options, see Investment options.

^1,2SuperRatings universe as at 30 June 2022.

Note

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Performance charts

The interactive graph below shows investment return for each investment option for a date range selected from the dropdown menu. Investment returns shown in this graph for each investment option is based on the change in unit prices over the relevant period, and is calculated after fees and taxes.

Performance charts

The interactive graph below shows investment return for each investment option for a date range selected from the dropdown menu. Investment returns shown in this graph for each investment option is based on the change in unit prices over the relevant period, and is calculated after fees and taxes.

In it for the long haul

It’s important to remember the long term role of superannuation. Your lifetime is the relevant investment horizon, not arbitrary reporting periods. This is why we seek to build resilient investment portfolios using high quality assets, so that whenever you choose to retire, you are able to do so regardless of the strength of the current markets.

Unit prices

When money goes into your super account, including contributions by you and your employer, what you're actually doing is buying units in the fund, which is somewhat similar to buying and owning shares in companies listed on the stock market.

You buy shares in a company, and over time, the value of those shares may go up or down, but you still have the same number of shares in that company.

With superannuation, your contributions ‘buy’ a number of units in your chosen investment option. Every unit you own represents your share in the investment option. The net asset value of those investments are then divided by the number of units issued to members to derive the unit price. Like shares, a unit represents the value of an interest in that investment option at any point in time.

Also like shares, the value of an interest in that investment option can go up and down over time.

Depending on your investment option, investments may include cash, shares in companies, government bonds, property, and infrastructure.

Over time, as your contributions are paid by your employer, you purchase more and more units in your investment option or options.

The value of those units generally move around and change on a daily basis as the value of investments change.

When you hear about changes in the stock market, this just means that the value of the units may have changed. You still hold the same number of units.

As super is invested for a long time, short-term drops in value are not usually something to worry about.

What are unit prices?

Unit prices are a way of calculating how much your investment in super is worth, and how it grows over time. Similar to shares, each unit represents a piece of the total pool of investments for the option you've chosen. When the total value of investment grows, so too does each unit. When it comes time to withdraw your super, the amount you receive is calculated according to how many units you bought.

Using a simple example, if you have $1,000 in your super, and the unit price is $1.00, that will buy 1,000 units. Let's say that over the next year there has been a 10% growth. A year from now, someone wanting to purchase an equivalent share of the fund would need to pay $1.10 per unit.
What does unit pricing mean?

Units are valued on a daily basis. Depending on how the investment market performs, a unit value can go up, and sometimes go down. These investment earnings are included in the daily unit price.

By using a unit value, you can calculate how much money you have at any given time. This makes it easy for you to track how your benefit is growing.

Unit prices are used for daily member transactions, as well as determine the actual performance a member achieves, which is based on the timing of their individual transactions. Unit prices also matter when it comes time to receive benefit payments.
Unit prices and performance

Investment performance for each investment option is calculated after fees and taxes. Past performance is no indication of future performance. Investment performance is calculated based on the actual value of investment option assets as at the end of the quoted performance period and is only indicative of the performance that a member achieves on their investment. Performance figures are based on final valuations as at period end. Using unit prices to calculate an investment performance figure for published performance periods will provide similar but not identical rates to the published investment performance figures.
How it works

Unit prices are determined based on the best available information at the time they are declared. Valuations are fed into the unit price calculations, as soon as practical after they are received.

We calculate Investment performance for each investment option after fees and taxes. Investment performance is calculated at the end of the quoted period, and is based on the actual value of the investment option assets at the end of the quoted performance period. However, it’s important to remember that past performance doesn’t indicate future performance results.

More information about unit prices

Why is the performance of my super different to the standard returns published?

Two calculations are involved when looking at investment returns. They are both used to measure performance, but they measure different things.

Standard option (time-weighted) rate of return measures the compound growth rate of one unit of money over an evaluation period. It removes the impact of cash flows when calculating the return. This makes it ideal for calculating the performance of an investment option or comparing between options on a like for like basis, by assuming there are no transactions in or out of the portfolio.

Individual member (money-weighted) rate of return measures the compound growth rate of an overall portfolio over an evaluation period. It takes into account both the size and timing of cash flows in and out of an investment portfolio, placing a greater weight on periods when the portfolio size is at its largest. Using a superannuation balance example, cash flows that will differ between members include:

switching between investment options
starting or stopping contributions part way through the time period
redemptions (e.g. pension payments)
additional contributions (e.g. salary sacrifice).

An example of how the return numbers differ

Let’s imagine a member made three transactions over a period of one year.

On 1 July 2020 they invested $1,000 to buy 1,000 units of Option A at $1.00 (spending $1,000).
On 1 January 2021 they bought another 1,000 units of Option A at a price of $1.25 per share (spending $1,250).
On 1 July 2021 they sold their entire holding of 2,000 Option A after the unit price fell to $1.10 (receiving $2,200).

In this example, our member lost $50 in their portfolio over the year.

But here’s how the return numbers differ.

The money-weighted return is –3.1% p.a., while the time-weighted return is 10.0% p.a.
The time-weighted return was positive, even though our member lost money in the portfolio.

Why? Because a time-weighted return measures the underlying performance of the units held in the portfolio. What it doesn’t measure are the actions of buying into or out of those units, or the impact of the size of those actions over the period being measured.

And if there are no cash flows in or out of the portfolio during the period being measured, the money-weighted and time-weighted rates of return will be the same.

Which calculation should I use?

These two methods can give different results, but understanding which one matters to you depends on how you intend to put this information to use.

If you want to compare the performance of a fund to other funds, you should look at the time-weighted rate of return.

Portfolio managers do not control the timing of cash flows into and out of the fund—members control that according to actions they take on your account—so it is not reasonable to include this effect when evaluating the performance of the fund manager.

If you want to see the performance of your retirement account, you should look at the money-weighted rate of return.

For many members, a money-weighted rate of return is the most appropriate method of measuring the performance of your portfolio because you—the member—control the inflows and outflows of your retirement balance.

How we perform