KiwiSaver

One of Fidelity Life’s KiwiSaver funds is being buffeted by the same global financial forces which forced the liquidation of the $75 million NZDX-listed Fidelity Capital Guaranteed bonds last week.

Fidelity’s options KiwiSaver fund uses the same strategy which includes writing put and call options on New Zealand, Australian and US government bonds.

 

Its unit price dropped to $3.8045 on August 9, the latest price available, from $4.1331 a day earlier and $4.8859 on July 29. That’s a 22.1% drop since July 29.

By contrast, over the same period, Fidelity’s aggressive KiwiSaver fund has seen its unit price fall 11.4% from $2.8057 to $2.4859 while its conservative fund has eased just $2.3% from $5.9572 to $5.8227.

The options KiwiSaver fund has been a strong performer. In the year ended July, its unit price rose 20.9% and it is 39.8% higher than at the end of July 2008.

Fidelity’s aggressive fund’s unit price rose 5.8% in the year ended July but is only 2.6% higher than in July 2008 while the conservative fund’s unit price fell 3% in the year ended July but is 8.5% higher than at the end of July 2008.

Fidelity chief executive Milton Jennings says while the KiwiSaver fund is following the same strategy as the bonds, it’s structured differently from the bonds and isn’t forced to start closing out contracts as the bonds did when they approached their floor set by a complicated formula.

That means the KiwiSaver fund can hang on in the hope of recovering when financial markets stabilise.

“When you write options and you get this extreme volatility that we’ve seen in the last couple of weeks, the premium you get escalates the income you earn from writing options – it’s probably three or four times you would have got prior to this volatility occurring,” Jennings says.

Nevertheless, “we would prefer not to have it (the volatility).”

Jennings says he expects it will take a few months for the options fund to recover. “Equity markets tend to take even longer to recover some of their losses.”

Bondholders will receive no more interest although they will get their capital back in mid-2013 because they are capital guaranteed by Westpac Bank.

Prime Minister John Key has signalled the Government is considering further changes to KiwiSaver that could see everyone in employment auto-enrolled into the savings scheme.

Key said auto-enrolment would be an option included in a discussion paper to be made public in the next few weeks and that the Government was asking IRD and the Treasury to advise on how auto enrolment might work.

At present the scheme has 1.7 million members while another million people in work have yet to join.

Officials estimate the cost of bringing the additional savers into the scheme, each with the $1,000 ‘kickstart’, would be around $1 billion, though it is also likely the opt-out rate would be higher.

That view was echoed by Workplace Savings New Zealand chairman David Ireland, who told TV One’s Breakfast programme many would opt out.

“They will decide it’s not for them and carry on doing nothing or making alternative provision,” he said.

Default KiwiSaver manager Tower Investment’s chief executive Sam Stubbs told Radio New Zealand he believed it was inevitable KiwiSaver would be made compulsory for those in employment.

However, Labour leader Phil Goff expressed concerns about extending the scheme to people who may not have the spare money to put into savings.

OnePath and ASB remain the dominant players in the KiwiSaver market, with 45.40% of KiwiSaver assets between them, according to the Morningstar KiwiSaver Performance Survey for the June quarter.

Morningstar’s co-head of fund research, Chris Douglas, said that while KiwiSaver results for the second quarter were mixed, largely due to the high Kiwi dollar creating a headwind for offshore investments, “it’s pleasing to see that many KiwiSaver funds are continuing to perform admirably over longer timeframes, especially when looking at performance from an investor’s standpoint.”

The survey also found that OnePath (mapping to SIL, ANZ and National Bank KiwiSaver options), Mercer and Westpac were the best performing multi-sector KiwiSaver options over the June quarter.

Looking at one and two year figures, a better indication of a fund managers performance, the survey found the Fisher Funds Growth KiwiSaver was the best performing multi-sector fund, “streaks ahead of peers over the past three years,” according to Douglas.

Aon held the second and third place spots with the Aon KiwiSaver Russell and Aon KiwiSaver OnePath.

Within the single sector options, listed property funds’ one-year returns have benefitted from the strong performance of the Kiwi and global listed property markets over the second quarter.

New Zealand property returned 22.08% and global property 44.16% over the past year, and the strongest performances were produced by the SIL KiwiSaver International Property and SIL Kiwisaver Australasian Property.

Morningstar also used time-weighted calculations to take account of the fact most KiwiSavers add to their funds incrementally, finding “KiwiSaver truly has been a great experience for the majority of investors.”

“When looking out over three years, investors in the more growth-orientated funds have experienced very strong results, despite the highly volatile market conditions,” Douglas said.

Morningstar also found KiwiSaver assets on their database had grown from $954.1 million in June 30, 2008 to $8.53 billion by June 30, 2011, “a phenomenal growth rate.”

The acquisition of Huljich funds helped Fisher Funds almost double its KiwiSaver assets, though OnePath and ASB remain the dominant players.

The survey also questioned ASB’s April 1 decision to increase the fees for a number of its KiwiSaver options.

The second largest KiwiSaver provider, with more than 20% market share and $1.78 billion in KiwiSaver funds, claimed the change was aimed at simplifying its fee structure and meeting increased technology and communication costs.

Douglas said the size and scale of ASB, the largely passive (ie low cost) nature of its investments and its economies of scale from predicted growth should be keeping its costs down.

“Given the tremendous success of KiwiSaver and the amount of money ASB manages, this was a surprise move,” Douglas said.

“While we applaud a more transparent approach, the increase in fees made no sense to us.”

Total KiwiSaver membership topped the 1.75 million mark in June despite a downturn in the sign-up rate, according to KiwiSaver provider Tower Investments.

 

Chief executive Sam Stubbs said that while the membership milestone was passed, “growth rates for KiwiSaver sign-ups fell after the Government’s Budget announcements of late May.”

“Anecdotal evidence indicated that public perceptions of KiwiSaver had turned somewhat negative since the Budget set out reduced Government subsidies, increased taxation, and larger employer and employee contribution minimums to be phased in for the scheme over 2012-13.”

Stubbs also said talk of potential compulsion had demotivated some people from joining the scheme “who believe they might be forced to belong later anyway.”

He said June was also a rocky month for investment markets with fears Greece’s debt problems could spark another global financial crisis, though those fears abated late in the month.

“Total net monthly growth in new membership dropped from above 1.5% in May to under 1.4% in June, with opt-in via employer and opt-in via provider leading the trend down.

“The only original KiwiSaver join method to show an increased rate of sign ups was automatically enrolled by employer, which lifted from a little over 1.4% in May to not far short of 1.5% in June.”

However, Stubbs said it was too early to tell if the June downturn in new KiwiSaver sign-up rates was a blip or “a significant turning point in public appetite for the scheme.”

“If June’s monthly membership grow rate continues for the rest of the year, there should be about 1.9 million KiwiSaver’s by the end of 2011,” he said.