Wellington, June 17 NZPA - The New Zealand Superannuation Fund made a negative returning in May but its year-to-date return is 17.26 percent.

The absolute return after fees but before tax was negative 4.82 percent in May. It was the first monthly negative return since January.

Since its inception on September 30, 2003 the Superfund has produced an annual return of 5.81 percent.

The fund size had grown to $15.86 billion.

About 6.6 percent of the fund is invested in New Zealand equities and 37.2 percent is invested in international large capitalised equities. The percentage of the fund invested in timber assets is 7.1 percent.

The Government has suspended automatic contributions to the Superfund to avoid further increasing debt.