In late 2025, the BUSSQ Board completed an extensive program of work interrogating our investment beliefs and philosophy, our overall investment portfolio construction and our investment option menu for members. This was in addition to our ongoing monitoring, to ensure our investment performance is consistently delivering the best possible outcomes for members.
The review showed that our use of active share and bond managers were not delivering the results members expect. Relying mostly on active managers, when there were ongoing ups and downs in share and bond markets, was increasing the risk of poor results.
After carefully weighing up the options, the Board decided to change its investment strategy and place a greater emphasis on enhanced index and index managers.
Index managers aim to match the performance of the overall market, such as the Dow Jones and the ASX 200. Enhanced index managers follow the market as well, but make small active adjustments to try to do better, without taking a significant extra risk. Unlike fully active managers, they are not trying to beat the market by large margins.
From December, we have been replacing most active managers with index or enhanced index managers. This change is expected to be completed by the end of May.
We’ve seen some early green shoots with our March performance with the Balanced Growth option improving to above median, finishing in SuperRating’s top half of fund rankings~. Both Defensive and High Growth finished in the top quarter.
We will continue to review our investment portfolio, with the aim of ensuring it is fit for purpose and delivers on our investment objectives for members.
Read BUSSQ’s latest Investment Market Update.
