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Note: Delay in the release of March 2006 issue

The March 2006 issue of Managed Funds, Australia (cat.no. 5655.0) scheduled for release on 26 May 2006 has been delayed. The ABS has not yet completed quality assurance procedures for some aspects of the data.

The publication is expected to be released on 9 June 2006. The release date will be confirmed on the website as soon as possible.

December 2005 - Main Features

DECEMBER KEY FIGURES

	Dec Qtr 2004	Sep Qtr 2005	Dec Qtr 2005
Consolidated Assets	$m	$m	$m
Superannuation funds	414 694	472 648	505 270
Life insurance offices(a)	183 598	191 426	194 564
Other managed funds	216 846	245 378	255 479
Total	815 138	909 452	955 313
(a) Investments by superannuation funds which are held and administered by life insurance offices are included under life insurance offices.
See note on consolidation in Explanatory Notes, para 10

Total consolidated assets

• Total consolidated assets of managed funds institutions was $955.3b at 31 December 2005, an increase of $45.9b (5.0%) from the revised September quarter 2005 figure, reflecting, in part, changes in asset values during the quarter. During the December quarter 2005, the S&P/ASX 200 increased by 2.6%, the price of foreign shares (represented by the US S&P 500) increased by 1.6% and the $A depreciated against the $US by 3.7%. Domestic bond prices fell during the quarter with the 5 year Treasury Bond yield increasing by 0.2 percentage points to 5.32%.
• Consolidated assets of superannuation funds increased by $32.6b (6.9%), public unit trusts by $9.5b (4.9%), life insurance offices by $3.1b (1.6%), cash management trusts by $0.5b (1.2%), and friendly societies by $0.1b (2.4%). Consolidated assets of common funds remained virtually unchanged.
• Investment managers had $940.6b in funds under management at 31 December 2005, up $37.6b (4.2%) from the revised September quarter 2005 figure. They managed $654.9b (68.6%) of the consolidated assets of managed funds institutions.

SIGNIFICANT EVENTS

• Since the December 2004 quarter, the ABS has been using a new data source to compile its superannuation estimates in Managed Funds (ABS cat. no. 5655.0). Statistics are now compiled from a quarterly data collection conducted by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) for super funds with assets greater than $50m, supplemented by estimates for other APRA regulated funds, and estimates of self-managed funds regulated by the Australian Taxation Office.
• The new data source led to an increase in the estimate of the level of aggregate superannuation statistics (table 3) in the December 2004 quarter. Accordingly, aggregates from the December 2004 quarter back to the March 2001 quarter have been revised to account for the new data source, and to preserve the time series.
• In addition, the ABS has reviewed the methodology used to compile estimates of superannuation fund asset detail. This issue of Managed Funds releases the asset detail from the December 2004 quarter onwards, and revises previously published asset detail, due to the updating of the methodology.
• The ABS has found that investment managers have had difficulty classifying superannuation funds placed through platforms, as they have not been able to identify the actual source of funds. These funds have previously been reported in "other investment managers". They have now been reclassified into superannuation funds back to the March 2001 quarter. See table 8. In addition, an adjustment has been made to the "other investment managers" series to account for undercoverage of selected fund managers. This adjustment has also been applied back to the March 2001 quarter.
• Investigations will continue during 2006 to identify any other areas of undercoverage in investment manager series.

INQUIRIES

For further information about these and related statistics, contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070 or Glen Malam on Canberra (02) 6252 5040.

ANALYSIS


CONSOLIDATED ASSETS

By type of institution

At 31 December 2005, consolidated assets of superannuation funds were $505.3b, up $32.6b (6.9%) since September 2005. Consolidated assets of public unit trusts increased by $9.5b (4.9%), whilst the assets of the remaining types of institutions increased by $0.5b or less.

Cross investment

The table below presents the unconsolidated, cross-invested and consolidated assets of managed funds by type of fund as at 31 December 2005.

	Unconsolidated assets	Cross- invested assets	Consolidated assets
Type of fund	$m	$m	$m
Life insurance offices	229 282	34 718	194 564
Superannuation funds	666 357	161 087	505 270
Public unit trusts	234 680	32 006	202 674
Friendly societies	6 737	2 045	4 692
Common funds	10 392	370	10 022
Cash management trusts	38 091	-	38 091
Total	1 185 539	230 226	955 313
- nil or rounded to zero (including null cells)

UNCONSOLIDATED ASSETS

Life insurance offices

At 31 December 2005, the total assets of life insurance offices were $229.3b, an increase of $0.8b since September 2005. There were increases in equities and units in trusts of $3.6b (2.3%), land and buildings of $0.6b (7.7%) and other financial assets of $0.2b (7.0%). Decreases were recorded for long term securities, down $2.0b (-8.4%), short term securities, down $1.3b (-9.7%) and assets overseas, down $0.6b (-4.2%).

The value of funds under management on behalf of superannuation funds increased by $13.7b (3.9%), public unit trusts increased $2.7b (2.6%) and cash management trusts increased by $0.8b (2.5%). This was partially offset by decreases in the value of funds under management on behalf of life insurance offices of $2.5b (-1.8%) and common funds of $0.6b (-6.6%), while friendly societies remained virtually the same.

The value of funds under management on behalf of sources other than managed funds increased $18.2b (7.9%) to $247.1b, from a revised September 2005 quarter estimate of $228.9b. Other investment managers increased $11.7b (38.0%), funds under management on behalf of other sources increased to $3.6b (12.3%) and government increased $3.5b (20.3%).These were partially offset by a decrease in funds under management on behalf of other trusts, down $1.5b (-1.2%). The value of funds under management on behalf of overseas sources increased to $38.6b, up $5.3b (16.0%) from the previous quarter.

The value of assets of managed funds that were invested through investment managers was $654.9b at 31 December 2005, representing 68.6% of the consolidated assets of managed funds.