The fund generated a pre-tax return of 11.84 percent after costs. Photo: RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King
Strength in global share markets has helped the New Zealand Super Fund beat its key performance benchmarks, with the value of the fund increasing by $8.4 billion over the past year.
The fund generated a pre-tax return of 11.84 percent after costs for the year ended June 2025, while the total fund size was $85.1b.
Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation chief executive Jo Townsend said while the result reflected strong markets, the Guardians' active investment strategies also delivered a positive impact on the Fund.
She pointed to two numbers to highlight the fund's performance.
"The first is net return, or the return over and above the government's cost of capital," Townsend said.
"For the past year, the 90-day Treasury bill rate was 4.61 percent, making our net return 7.24 percent - to put it another way, maintaining the Fund this year has made the Crown $5.5b better off," she said.
Earlier this year, international sovereign wealth fund experts Global SWF named the NZ Super Fund as the world's best-performing sovereign wealth fund over the past 10 and 20 years.
Townsend said over the past two decades, the fund consistently outperformed long-run expectations, with an average annual return of 9.92 percent.
"Certainly, part of that is down to some well-thought-out and well-implemented active investment strategies: during that time, those strategies have generated close on $20b more than a passive strategy with the same level of market risk would have returned," Townsend said.
"However, we must also recognise that much of the fund's success is due to the exceptionally strong performance of global markets over the past 20 years - despite two once-in-a-generation crises in the global financial crisis and Covid-19."
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