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MARCH KEY FIGURES

	Mar Qtr 2003	Dec Qtr 2003	Mar Qtr 2004
Consolidated Assets	$m	$m	$m
Superannuation funds	293,533	342,771	354,196
Life insurance offices(a)	166,384	165,954	166,730
Other managed funds	175,645	190,362	192,009
Total	635,561	699,088	712,935
(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 8

Total consolidated assets

• Total consolidated assets of managed funds institutions was $712.9b at 31 March 2004, an increase of $13.8b (2%) from the revised December quarter 2003 figure. This increase mainly reflected increases in asset values for the quarter. During the March quarter 2004, the S&P/ASX 200 increased by 3%. The price of foreign shares (represented by the US S&P 500) increased by 1%, offset by a 1% appreciation of the $A against the $US. Domestic bond prices increased during the quarter with the 5 year Treasury Bond yield decreasing by 0.2 percentage points.
• Consolidated assets of superannuation funds, public unit trusts and common funds experienced increases of $11.4b (3%), $1.6b (1%), and $0.3 (4%) respectively. Assets of life insurance offices, friendly societies and cash management trusts remained virtually the same.
• The major asset movements for the quarter were in equities and units in trusts, up $8.7b (3%), assets overseas, up $1.5b (1%), land and buildings, up $1.5b (2%) and long term securities, up $1.1b (2%).
• Investment managers had $705.5b in funds under management, up $20.8b (3%) from the revised December quarter 2003 figure. They managed $479.5b (67%) of consolidated managed funds' assets.

REVISIONS THIS ISSUE

There have been revisions in many series as a result of quality assurance work undertaken with data providers. In particular revisions have been made to: fund managers (revised back to December 2001 in respect of classification of source of funds) and public unit trusts (revised back to September 2002 as a result of coverage checks and changes in reporting arrangements due to merger activity).

In consultation with the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority (APRA) and the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) total assets and the asset profile of small and medium superannuation funds has been adjusted and revised back to June 1999 to reflect analysis of the annual regulatory returns to ATO and APRA. The data for ATO regulated funds and small and medium APRA funds in this publication are consistent with the revised data published by APRA in December 2003 reference quarter edition of Super Trends (see www.apra.gov.au/statistics).

ROUNDING

Discrepancies may occur between sums of the component items and totals due to rounding.

INQUIRIES

For further information about these and related statistics, contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070 or Amanda Seneviratne on Canberra (02) 6252 7489.

ANALYSIS


CONSOLIDATED ASSETS

By type of institution

At 31 March 2004, consolidated assets of superannuation funds was $354.2b, up $11.4b (3%) since December 2003. Consolidated assets of public unit trusts and common funds experienced increases of, $1.6b (1%), and $0.3 (4%) respectively. Assets of life insurance offices, friendly societies and cash management trusts remained virtually the same at $166.7b, $4.5b and $29.6b respectively.

	Unconsolidated assets	Cross- invested assets	Consolidated assets
Type of fund	$m	$m	$m
Life insurance offices	197,456	30,725	166,730
Superannuation funds	430,224	76,028	354,196
Public unit trusts	177,325	28,617	148,709
Friendly societies	6,198	1,660	4,538
Common funds	9,563	387	9,177
Cash management trusts	29,586	-	29,586
Total	850,351	137,416	712,935
- nil or rounded to zero (including null cells)

UNCONSOLIDATED ASSETS

Life insurance offices

At 31 March 2004, the total assets of life insurance offices stood at $197.5b, an increase of $0.7b since December 2003. Major increases were in equities and units in trusts of $3.1b (3%), long term securities of $0.9b (4%) and short term securities of $0.5b (4%). Cash and deposits decreased by $1.9b (20%) while loans and placements remained virtually unchanged. Assets held overseas decreased by $1.7b (10%).

The value of funds under management on behalf of superannuation funds increased by $6.4b (3%), life insurance offices increased by $2.5b (2%), and public unit trusts increased by $1.5b (2%).

During the quarter the value of funds under management on behalf of sources other than managed funds increased $7.7b (4%). Of this, the largest increase was funds under management on behalf of trusts other than public unit trusts, $3.0b (4%). There were increases also in the value of funds under management on behalf of other investment managers, $1.9b (3%) and other sources, $1.5 (9%).

The value of funds under management on behalf of overseas sources increased to $21.4b following an $2.2b (11%) increase from the previous quarter.

Continuing merger activity has resulted in changed reporting arrangements for some fund managers. The ABS continues to work with the relevant fund managers to clarify these changes in reporting and assess their impact on the estimates.

The value of managed funds assets invested through investment managers was $479.5b at 31 March 2004, representing 67% of the consolidated assets of managed funds.