The quarterly survey reports on the performance and risk characteristics of the majority of New Zealand’s investment funds.

It found the OneAnswer Growth KiwiSaver fund returned 19.9% in the 12 months ended December, compared to an average of 17.8% for growth funds.

MJW principal Mark Weaver said the performance of the OneAnswer Growth Fund’s performance was boosted by the fund’s high allocation to growth assets, nearly 83%, and the strong performance from the underlying global shares.

“It was a good year for sharemarket investors with global markets up 27% and the NZX50 up 17.9%,” he said.

Global bond markets were up just 2.2% and the local government bond index was in negative territory because of the New Zealand economy’s strong outlook.

Of the balanced funds, the OneAnswer offering also topped the sector, with a return of 16.3% against an average 12.5%.

The fund had nearly 68% in growth assets, a reasonably high level for a balanced fund.

The best performing conservative fund was Mercer’s. It was up 7.4% and had a 38% allocation to cash.

Weaver said over the last one-, three- and five-year periods KiwiSaver funds have performed in line with their risk profiles.

Average annual returns over the five years to December 31 for growth, balanced and conservative options were 10.6%, 9.1% and 6.2% respectively.

“With the major market dislocation of the global financial crisis now five years behind us, it seems asset class returns are starting to conform again with long-term historical trends,” he said.