A letter from Dave Woodall, CEO Superannuation

Welcome to your first employer newsletter for 2025.

As we start to make our way through the year, I want to share that we are in the process of developing our next strategic plan, one that aims to enhance how we serve our customers, both now and in the future. We remain committed to delivering the best outcomes for your staff and exploring new ways to improve and grow our service offerings. We're looking forward to working together in 2025 to help your employees achieve their financial goals.

Strong investment returns for your employees

Members in MLC’s MySuper Growth Portfolio – where the majority of our MySuper members are invested – benefitted from a strong double-digit 11.3% return for the 12-months to 31 December 2024.

Global listed shares were the largest contributor to the Portfolio’s performance over this period, particularly the Portfolio’s exposure to US technology stocks. US shares made strong gains over 2024 and this continued into the last quarter of the calendar year, supported by Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election.

The 3 and 5-year returns for the MySuper Growth Portfolio also remain robust, delivering 5.75% and 7.12% per annum to 31 December 2024, respectively. This solid longer-term performance places the Portfolio in the top quartile of MySuper funds over both time periods.¹

Please note results for the next investment quarter to 31 March 2025 will be available soon. We will share these with you as soon as they are ready.

Insignia Financial & SS&C sign agreement to drive Master Trust Transformation

Insignia Financial has now signed a binding Master Services Agreement (MSA) with SS&C Technologies (SS&C). Signing the agreement signifies that we are now officially on the way to delivering an important milestone in our Master Trust strategy.  

Our Master Trust business encompasses the MLC Super Fund (Plum Super and MasterKey Business Super) and the Retirement Portfolio Service (ANZ SmartChoice).

The MSA will see approximately 1,400 Insignia Financial members of the administration and technology teams that support Insignia’s Master Trust business, as well as technology and certain premises, transition from Insignia Financial to SS&C. We are targeting mid-2025 as the transition date.  

Following transition to SS&C, we will begin to work together to simplify Insignia Financial’s multiple Master Trust technology platforms and operating models to one, with SS&C’s registry solution Bluedoor at its core. This simplification work is expected to occur between 2026 to 2028.

Read more in the ASX announcement from 20 February 2025, which coincided with the release of Insignia’s half yearly performance results.

Award winning super

We’re proud that the following products have earned a 5 Apples rating for 2025 from Chant West.

• MLC MasterKey Super Fundamentals
• MLC MasterKey Business Super
• MLC MasterKey Personal Super
• Plum Super – Corporate
• Plum Super – Personal 

This rating is the highest Chant West rating for a super fund. To earn 5 apples, a super fund must have scored highly across most of our key areas of assessment which include investments, member services, fees, insurance and organisation.

Supporting Women’s Financial Literacy

This time of year marks a unique opportunity to engage your employees on important topics and updates relating to women’s financial literacy. With both International Women’s Day and the Gender Pay Gap so prevalent in the media, it’s a great time to look at how you can engage and educate female employees.

MLC have prepared a host of educational materials to help your female employees engage further with their money and super habits. This year’s toolkit includes  a comprehensive women’s financial literacy guide ‘Dream big, take action: A woman’s guide to greater financial wellbeing’. as well as a video series featuring Jenneke Mills, Head of Technical services at MLC and Shayne Sommer, Private Wealth Adviser at Shadforth, who sat down to discuss some key insights from MLC’s 2024 Financial Freedom Report and share practical tips to help empower individuals to work toward their own financial independence.

Be sure to check in with your Relationship Manager or check-out our socials for more updates on this important activity.

Helping your employees keep track of their finances

This year we launched a new digital tool, MLC Money View.

MLC Money View is an easy way for your employees to understand their current situation and get a projection of their financial future. Members simply drop in their personal and financial details and the secure tool will build a customised dashboard that can help them understand:

• What their home or investment property are worth
• What their goals are and if they are on track to achieve them
• How their budget is shaping up
• If they’ll have enough in retirement
• If they have the right level of insurance

Access the MLC Money View tool today.

Donald Trump boosts cryptocurrencies: should investors take heed?

Wind the clock back a few years and if you had asked investment professionals for their opinions on cryptocurrencies, you would likely have received a withering response. However, the passage of time has fostered some change, and outright rejection has given way to more nuanced thinking. Like many institutional investors, we remain in the ‘not now’, rather than ‘not ever’ to bitcoin camp.

Dan Farmer, Chief Investment Officer explains why in his latest update.

Annual Members’ Meeting (AMM)

We recently held our AMMs across our four funds. During the meetings, we covered important updates on your employees’ super, its performance in 2024, and our economic outlook for 2025. We also took time to answer your employees’ questions.

We’ve made it easy to catch-up on the meetings:

MLC - mlc.com.au/amm

Your feedback is important to us

We believe in continuously improving our services and offerings for you and your employees. You should receive an invite to our annual NPS survey in early April and we encourage you to share your thoughts – your feedback is valuable to us.

Look out for an email from Nature, an independent research company conducting the annual survey on our behalf. After completing the survey, you will also have the opportunity to win one of two $500 online GiftPay vouchers.

Your valuable insights will help us to continue delivering on what’s important to you and knowing where we can improve.

Partnering for success: Supporting your employees in 2025

We look forward to continuing our partnership and supporting your employees’ financial journeys throughout the year. Stay tuned for more updates, and as always, don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions or feedback.

Warm regards,
Dave Woodall
CEO, Superannuation | Insignia Financial