The number of people who are leaving industry super to establish self-managed superannuation funds (SMSFs) has been steadily increasing since 2004, according to new Vanguard/Investment Trends research.
The proportion of SMSFs that were originally in retail super funds peaked between 2002-04 at 41 per cent, but fell to 34 per cent between 2008-11. Conversely, the number of people exiting industry funds to manage their own super rose from 21 per cent in 2002-04 to 29 per cent in 2008-11.
Investment Trends principal Mark Johnston said the trend was very informative, since his company had noticed many industry funds were taking an interest in buying research about SMSFs.
"From [the industry funds’] perspective it’s still a small number of people, but often they have very high balances, so the impact of those members leaving on industry funds is reasonably significant," Johnston said.
Drilling down on the numbers, Johnston said a third of people were moving over to SMSFs from retail funds (34 per cent), with almost the same number coming from industry funds (29 per cent). 21 per cent of SMSFs were originally in corporate super funds, and 9 per cent were originally in public sector funds.
