Professional Associations Super Hits $1.7 Billion After Two Year Growth Spurt

Melbourne, Australia, June 24, 2011 --(PR.com)-- Efficiencies that minimise investment fees combined with strong investment returns have enabled Professional Associations Super to grow by 36 percent in the last two years, reaching $1.7 billion in February 2011.

Not only is Professional Associations Super one of the top ten industry funds in terms of member numbers, with its default Growth option consistently achieving top quartile investment performance over the last 2 years since its investment platform relaunch, but is also now one of the fastest growing industry funds in Australia.

A strong employment market has also helped boost the fund, particularly through its RecruitmentSuper division, which services the direct employees and temporary staff of many recruitment agencies, which have recovered well since the downturn. Accountants Super, aimed at those in the accounting sector, and Australian Enterprise Super, which supports small to medium businesses, also continued to attract new members, with the fund’s overall membership now at 445,000 members.

Megan Bolton, CEO of Professional Associations Super, said there has been a strong focus on member experience and investment performance in the past two years.

“It’s not just about gaining new members, but ensuring our members are making the active choice to stay with us. Retention and consolidation results indicate that members are responding positively to fund improvements and are rewarding us with their loyalty. This has been an important part of our recent growth, and will continue to be a focus going forward.”

“Working with our management group, eo Financial Services, we redesigned each brand’s websites, overhauled the quality of member communications and invested in research to understand member preferences.”

“We also focused on the fund’s investment strategy, appointing a Chief Investment Officer, Paul Kessell, adopting a responsible investing framework, and reviewing all our fund managers.”

According to Ms Bolton, these improvements have paid off and made the most of a recovering economy.

“We’re seeing great investment performance, more members joining and greater member retention. We’ve also had external recognition, such as the RecruitmentSuper SelectSuper product being awarded a five-star rating from Canstar Cannex – the highest possible – for offering outstanding value,” she said.

Ms Bolton said growth to date has been organic, but doesn’t rule out further expansion through potential M&A activity. “We’ve put a lot of time and resources into creating a fund structure that delivers strong returns but also low costs for members, and our growth suggests we’re getting that balancing act right.

“It now makes sense to look at how we can build on that success and achieve our growth target of $3 billion by 2012. Consolidation is clearly an option, and one that could bring greater scale and efficiency. This would place the fund well into the Top 50 in terms of FUM in Australia,” Ms Bolton said.

Professional Associations Super is an industry super fund for professionals operating across a number of key industries. Its superannuation divisions include RecruitmentSuper, Accountants Super and Australian Enterprise Super, as well as a pension division, SMARTpension. With over 450,000 members nationally and more than $1.7 billion in funds under management, Professional Associations Super is one of the largest industry superannuation funds (by membership) in Australia.

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