{"id":274697,"date":"2026-02-09T03:24:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T03:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/274697\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T03:24:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T03:24:07","slug":"kiwisaver-fees-to-top-1-1b-as-funds-hit-145b-morningstar-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/274697\/","title":{"rendered":"KiwiSaver fees to top $1.1b as funds hit $145b \u2013 Morningstar report"},"content":{"rendered":"Morningstar said global equities outperformed local markets.<\/p>\n
New Zealand equities posted modest gains, while Australian equities were broadly flat in local terms but slightly positive for New Zealand investors because of currency effects, it said.<\/p>\n
Morningstar said \u201cdefensive assets provided limited but stabilising returns\u201d, with global and New Zealand corporate bonds modestly positive, offset by small losses in longer-dated New Zealand government bonds.<\/p>\n
The New Zealand dollar weakened through much of the quarter before rebounding in late December, meaning unhedged offshore assets benefited from a currency tailwind, contributing to stronger New Zealand-dollar returns relative to hedged exposures.<\/p>\n
Cryptocurrency assets fell sharply over the quarter, detracting from returns where allocations were meaningful, the firm said.<\/p>\n
Among the KiwiSaver products, tables in the report showed the Koura Scheme Bitcoin scheme returned -22% for the December quarter and -9.7% for the year.<\/p>\n
Since December, Bitcoin has continued to fall, losing about a quarter of its value.<\/p>\n
Last week, it sank below US$65,000 ($108,000) for the first time since 2024, wiping out all of the gains it had made since Donald Trump was elected to his second term as US President.<\/p>\n
Morningstar said the top-performing product over the quarter was a 12.2% return from Kernel S&P Global Clean Energy, which also registered the highest return \u2013 59.9% \u2013 for the 12 months.<\/p>\n
Overall, growth-oriented KiwiSaver funds generally recorded a solid quarter, supported by offshore equities and favourable foreign exchange translation, while balanced and conservative funds delivered smaller, steadier gains as bond returns remained subdued.<\/p>\n
Most multi-sector KiwiSaver funds produced positive returns.<\/p>\n
Simplicity had a strong quarter with its funds in the top of most of its categories and other than Simplicity, MAS KiwiSaver and ASB KiwiSaver showed some strong performance across the board, and a couple of Kernel\u2019s low-cost, multi-asset funds had some strong showings.<\/p>\n
ANZ led the market share with over $23b.<\/p>\n
ASB was in second position, with a market share of 14.8%. Then came Fisher, Milford and Westpac.<\/p>\n
The big five accounted for about 65% the assets in Morningstar\u2019s database, or around $90b under management<\/p>\n
Morningstar said over 10 years, the aggressive category average had given investors an annualised return of 9.5%, followed by growth (8.2%), balanced (6.9%), moderate (5.0%), and conservative (4.2%).<\/p>\n
JamieGray is an Auckland-based journalist, covering the financial markets, the primary sector and energy. He joined the Herald in 2011.<\/p>\n
Stay ahead with the latest market moves, corporate updates, and economic insights by subscribing to our Business newsletter<\/a> \u2013 your essential weekly round-up of all the business news you need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Morningstar said global equities outperformed local markets. New Zealand equities posted modest gains, while Australian equities were broadly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":266139,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[14041,154921,806,8613,138,32294,4381,35958,12470,1138,36091,3594,1426,5511,6964,9554,3234,19327,111,139,1536,69,1523,2994,1560,1518,165,61,3010,1533],"class_list":["post-274697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-11b","tag-145b","tag-as","tag-billion","tag-business","tag-charge","tag-customers","tag-estimates","tag-fees","tag-firm","tag-funds","tag-hit","tag-investment","tag-just","tag-kiwisaver","tag-manage","tag-months","tag-morningstar","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-next","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-providers","tag-report","tag-research","tag-their","tag-to","tag-top","tag-will"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274697\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}