Simplicity has taken over from Milford as the top KiwiSaver growth fund over 10 years, in new analysis from MJW.

MJW has released its September investment survey, which is the first time that Simplicity’s growth fund has had ten years’ worth of history. It had recorded 9.9 percent returns per annum over 10 years, taking it to the top of the table.

Read the full report using the link at the bottom of this article.

Milford had been the best performing growth fund over 10 years in every other update since at lease December 2017, MJW said.

“We acknowledge that our survey is not ‘waterfront coverage’,” MJW said.

“We show results from the largest providers’ flagship fund in each product category. With that said, the providers included cover some 93 percent of the KiwiSaver market by assets under management as at 31 March 2026.”

Milford’s growth fund has slipped in recent months as it took a more defensive stance on some international technology stocks.

Simplicity was also the best growth fund over one year, with 11.7 percent return and three years at 15.5 percent.

Its chief economist Shamubeel Eaqub said it was not surprising. When the market was strong, having low fees would propel a fund like Simplicity’s to the top of the table, he said.

He said it was interesting that some of the big bank fees, with higher fees, were recording much lower results. Over ten years, ANZ was 10th and Westpac ninth.

Michael Robson, Milford’s general manager of wholesale distribution, congratulated Simplicity.

“It’s good for the industry, the more you get providers reaching these milestones of having longer track records, that's great. There's choice in the market for KiwiSaver members.”

He said Milford still had a very good long-term track record across its funds.

“As you get more providers with longer track records, you're going to see whoever's number one for the quarter move around. It's just naturally going to happen as there becomes more competition in the industry.”

He said Milford had been able to deliver its returns with a relatively low level of risk compared to the rest of the market.

“That’s a big part of the Milford approach. We want to deliver strong, long-term performance, but we want to do that in a risk-aware manner.

“If you were to look at Milford over the long run, when there's something called upside downside capture numbers. It shows how is Milford performing while markets go up and how does Milford perform when markets fall. Our upside capture numbers over a 10 year are 91 percent.

“So that basically means if markets went up 10 percent, you'd expect Milford to go up about 9.1 percent. If you look at our downside capture numbers, and this is for the active growth fund, it's 77 percent.  What that means is if you saw markets fall by 10 percent, you'd expect Milford would only fall 7.7.”

He said Milford was also focused on providing service to clients and financial advisers.

“Performance is one thing, but also what's the journey like? What kind of service are you providing to clients? Whether it's the tools we're providing, we also put an awful lot on for independent financial advisers, supporting them in their businesses, and really helping them with those conversations they're having with clients in KiwiSaver. So I think when you bring all those things together, you know, we still think we've got a really strong proposition.

“I think my team are doing a fantastic job  going out there supporting financial advisers. We're heavily investing in our technology to support financial advisers in their businesses. And we regularly go out and survey those advisers to how we're doing and get pretty strong results.”

MJW noted that overall the September quarter had included modest positive results from global equity markets with the MSCI World Index up 1.8 percent in local currency terms on the back of strong performance from the US technology sector.

“Despite the positive results mop doubt weighing on investors’ minds was the reintensification of conflict in the Middle East.

“This quarter, value styled managers again beat their growth competitors, and they have built quite a lead over the trailing twelve months. This has gone some way to bring the styles on par over the medium term.”