AGEST -
Australian Government Employees Superannuation Trust
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Low feesWe believe that no other major superannuation fund in Australia, with a product range as wide as ours, has a simple fee structure as low as ours. Our low fees are in stark contrast to many retail super funds who deduct large percentage-based fees from members in order to pay commissions to their salespeople or pay substantial dividends to their shareholders. In those cases, the retail fund's salespeople and shareholders are the winners, not the super fund members. We have a simple duty to our members, and we take it very seriously - we set member fees at a level that will cover our costs - no more, no less. We are not extravagant like some retail funds. We believe that our focus on costs, service and products is second to none. We remain committed to keeping fees down, whilst still providing the level of service and product range that our members expect of us. That's just one way in which we make it easy for members to have confidence that we are acting only in their interests. After all, it's your money, not ours. Administration fees The administration fee for all members (including Allocated Pensioners) is 70 cents per week. It's as simple as that. This fee is deducted monthly ($3.05 per month) from each member's account, or earlier if you close your account. Administration fees apply to each membership account (eg if an Allocated Pensioner has two allocated pension accounts because they have rolled in an additional amount after the first allocated pension account was opened, two sets of fees will apply). Investment costs These are the costs for investing your superannuation. They include fees paid to external investment managers, investment consulting fees, custodian costs and internal costs relating to investment management (excluding transaction costs). The costs vary from year to year and depend on the investment option. Projected costs for 2007/2008 range between 0.02% and 0.79% depending on the investment option(s) you choose. For full details of the fees applicable for each investment option, refer to our Product Disclosure Statement (PDS). Member Protection costs Member protection costs are the costs of protecting members with a small account balance from administration fees, as required by law. The cost varies from year to year but is usually very small. The cost in 2007/08 was 0.02% (or 20 cents for the year on a $1,000 account). These costs are distributed to members via a reduction to the investment return. For full details of our fees, refer to our Product Disclosure Statement (PDS). Management Expense Ratio (MER) The Management Expense Ratio (MER) is the expenses of a fund (e.g. investment, management, trusteeship) as a proportion of the fund's net asset value. You may think that that the MER is a simple way to compare costs across multiple funds, however this is not the case for a number of reasons. For example, the MER for an individual member will vary depending on the investment options in which they are invested and the size of their account balance. There may also be differences between funds in regard to what expenses they include in their MER calculation. To assist people wanting to compare our costs with those of other funds (expressed in the form of an MER), we have developed a small EXCEL file that enables you to plug in your details. It will calculate the MER for your own investment profile. You can download our MER spreadsheet at the bottom of this page. For example, if you invest in the Balanced option with $50,000, the MER is 0.59%. How do our fees compare with other funds? Our fee structure is simple and easy to understand. We have:
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