Australia’s superannuation industry took a whopping $208 billion hit in the March quarter due to COVID-19.

During that quarter, the ASX 200 lost a third of its value, including the biggest daily fall on record, with a fall of 9.7 percent, which of course smashed portfolios across the country.

The value of shares within the superannuation pool fell by 23 percent, or $110 billion.

In March and April, there was a lot of mud throwing around the way superannuation funds had been marking the value of their assets.

House economics committee chairman Tim Wilson queried why industry superannuation funds had written down their unlisted assets by less than the actual share price drops experienced by listed companies with comparable assets.

In letters to superfunds, Mr Wilson demanded they disclose to the committee whether there have been any write-downs to the value of their unlisted infrastructure and property assets, given the big falls in the value of comparable listed assets such as Sydney Airport and Transurban.
I for myself also would love to know what their explanation is. Has there been any creative bookkeeping by any of them?

If that’s the case, we Australians deserve to know what is being done with our hard earned retirement savings and perhaps it’s time for a lot of us to take our superannuation matters into our own hands, of course with guidance from qualified financial professionals.