About 30,000 new self-managed super funds established in 2011: APRA

The appeal of self-managed super funds (SMSF) continues to grow, with 30,000 of these entities set up over the course of 2011, according to the latest figures released by APRA.

There are now 458,561 SMSFs in Australia compared with 428,226 at the start of the year – growth of 7%.

However, there has been less successful growth in the asset bases of these funds despite the growth in numbers.

As of December 2011, the value of assets held by SMSFs stands at $399.9 billion compared with $394.4 billion at the end of December 2010, growth of just 2.2%

The APRA figures do not provide a breakdown of the types of assets held by SMSFs, but according to SMSF administrator Multiport, 17.6% of SMSF portfolios comprise property assets, up from 15.7% a year ago.

Self-managed superannuation funds hold the largest proportion of the $1.31 trillion in superannuation assets, accounting for 30.6% of assets, followed by retail funds with 27.4% of total assets. 

Industry funds accounted for 18.9% of total assets, public sector funds 15.7% and corporate funds 4.1%. Small APRA funds held 0.2% of total assets. 

The total number of super funds (excluding SMSFs and other pooled funds) declined from 396 to 362 over 2011 with the number of corporate super funds falling from 150 to 128 and retail fund numbers declining from 144 to 137.