ANZ's growth and balanced KiwiSaver returns take first place
Every dog has its day, they say, and ANZ’s growth and balanced KiwiSaver options were the best performers in their categories in a March quarter that delivered negative returns across the board.
Wednesday, April 29th 2026, 8:47AM
by Jenny Ruth
The latest Mercer Jessup Weaver survey also shows Milford’s $455 million conservative fund in the unaccustomed position of being worst performer out of 19 conservative funds for the year ended March after being placed 17th out of 19 for the March quarter with a negative 1.9% return.
MJW noted returns were negative across all investment categories in the March quarter.
It pointed to the MSCI World Index’s 3.2% loss for the quarter: “While this quarter’s result was not disastrous, it is the worst single quarter return for this index since late 2022, must exceeding the slightly smaller losses felt in the March 2025 and September 2023 quarters.”
Nevertheless, MJW says the impact has been milder in the latest quarter than the impact of other recent crises, including the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the covid pandemic in 2020.
The survey shows ANZ’s $5.17 billion growth fund achieved a negative return of 2.2% in the March quarter, which was still better than any other growth fund, and its 11.2% return for the year ended March put it in fifth place for the year, while it was in 12th place for both the three years ended March and five years ended March and 11th out of 14 funds for the 10 years ended March.
Similarly, the negative 1.7% return from ANZ’s $3.7 billion balanced fund was the best performer of 17 funds in the March quarter, lifting it to 11th place for the year ended March with a positive 7.7% return. It placed 17th for the three years ended March with annual returns of 6.5% and in 16th place out of 16 funds over five years with annual returns of 3.5%.
The worst performing funds in both these categories was Fisher funds, the $4 billion Fisher growth fund ranking last out of 15 growth funds with a negative 5.3% return for the quarter and it was also the worst performer over the year ended March with a positive 3% return.
The $1.76 billion Fisher Two balanced fund ranked 17th out of 17 funds with a negative 3.9% for the quarter and it was also the worst performer for the year with a positive 3.4% return.
Fisher may take some solace in the fact that the default KiwiSaver fund it bought from Kiwi Group Holdings in 2022, now worth $1.01 billion, was the best performer of the six default funds with a negative 0.9% return for the quarter.
The default fund was also in first place for the year with a positive 10.3% return, and first over three years with 10.2% annual returns.
SuperLife’s $720 million fund was the worst performer of the default funds over the March quarter, year and three years with returns of negative 3.7%, positive 7.6% and positive 8.4% respectively.
ASB’s $3.7 billion conversative fund took first place honours out of the 19 conservative funds with a negative 0.5% return and it was first over the year with a positive 6.5% return and over three years with annual returns of 6.7%.
Generate’s $162 million conservative fund was the quarter’s worst performer with a negative 2.1% return, but it was 14th out of 19 for the year with a positive 3.9% return and sixth over three years with annual returns of 6%.
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