A word from our CEO
April 24 2024
Mark Puli - 17 Aug 2021
This has been another extraordinary financial year with families, businesses, jobs and day-to-day lives thrown into turmoil. You, our members, have once again stepped up and made significant personal sacrifices to protect our health and wellbeing, support our children's education and keep our communities safe. On behalf of everyone at ESSSuper, I'd like to say a heartfelt thank you.
Our priority remains to protect your wealth and retirement dreams.
To this end, we've made a number of service improvements in recent months. We've expanded and improved our webinar series, increased the size of our Member Advice team* to provide personal financial advice to more members than ever before, and implemented a new telephony system in our Member Service Centre that modernises the way we connect. In 2022, we're making changes to our online platforms to improve access, flexibility, transaction speed and security. We'll let you know more as we progress.
Looking at investment returns, I'm pleased to say that all of ESSSuper's Accumulation Plan investment options met their investment objectives over the year and longer periods to 30 June 2021. Over the past five years, our Growth default option has achieved a five-year annualised return of 7.8%, exceeding its investment objective. Accumulation Plan assets grew by approximately 18.5% to $7.6 billion in the 12 months to 30 June 2021, demonstrating the value ESSSuper provides to our members. Looking forward, we expect volatile investment markets and global uncertainty to continue for a while, and you can read more about this in our Investment update - 2020-21 financial year article.
Of course, if your super is invested in the Defined Benefit Funds, then your entitlements are guaranteed by the Victorian State Government. Equity market returns, which can be volatile at times, will not impact your ESSSuper defined benefit retirement savings.
As a result of our genuine member focus, ESSSuper has once again received a number of respected industry awards. In 2021, SuperRatings rated ESSSuper's Accumulation Plan as Platinum (i.e. in the top 25 per cent of funds) for the twelfth year in a row and our Income Streams as Platinum for the thirteenth year in a row.† In addition, we were named the top-ranked fund for member satisfaction in the 2021 Investment Trends Super Member Engagement Report for the third year running. I'm proud to say that we have achieved this ranking in six of the last eight years.#
Undoubtedly, the year ahead will throw up new challenges. Rest assured, we appreciate the trust you show in us and will work hard to help you achieve the comfortable retirement you deserve.