The assets managed by Austrian Pensionskassen (pension companies) fell as a result of the falling prices as a consequence of turbulence on the capital markets triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic towards the end of the 1st Quarter of 2020 to € 21.9 billion, a fall by -9.8% compared to the previous quarter. At the same time, the number of entitled beneficiaries increased by 0.6% to almost 874,000, while the number of beneficiaries drawing a pension benefit rose by 0.7% to just over 112,000. As a result, approximately 22.7% of all non-self-employed in Austria have an entitlement to a benefit from the Pensionskassen system. The investment performance that is calculated by the Oesterreichische Kontrollbank (OeKB) on a quarterly basis stood in the 1st quarter of 2020 at -10%, with multi-employer Pensionskassen (-10.4%) faring significantly worse than single-employer Pensionskassen (-5.9%). On average over the last three years the performance was -0.4%, over the last five years +0.4%, and for the last ten years +2.9%. These findings emerged from the “Q1 2020 Quarterly Report for Pensionskassen” that was published today by the Austrian Financial Market Authority (FMA).
Conservative Investment Strategy
Approximately 96.36% of the assets managed by the Pensionskassen were held indirectly via investment funds. This can be broken down into the following investment categories: debt securities 44.03%, equities 29.80%, balances held at banks 9.43%, real estate 5.42%, loans and credits 0.75%, and other assets 10.56%. 31.22% of the investment volume, after taking currency hedge transactions into account, are held in foreign currencies.
During the 1st quarter of 2020, eight Pensionskassen were active in the Austrian market, of which five were multi-employer ones and three single-employer ones. In 2005 there were 21 Pensionskassen. The consolidation process in recent years has occurred as a result of single-employer Pensionskassen have transferred their business to multi-employer Pensionskassen.
The full quarterly report can be found (in German only) via this link.
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