Pension Assets hit N9.583 Trn. Having surged by about 2% month on month, Pension Fund Assets (Pencomunder management hits N9.583 trillion, the unaudited valuation report for September has revealed.
However, it has been observed that investment in corporate debt securities is picking, from N474.32 billion in April, to N476.265 billion in May, then N505.82 billion in June.
By July, it surged to N534.385 billion, and then to N556.264 billion in August before it hits N621.955 billion in September.
In August, pension assets were valued at N9.439 trillion and N9.367 trillion in July, 2019.
Unsurprisingly, Federal Government securities, as matter of statutory provision, attracted chunk of the pension fund assets.
FG takes increased in absolute term to N6.844 trillion from N6.819 trillion in August. Over all, FG proportion of the total assets decline to 71.43% as against 72.24% a month earlier.
The review of data shows that investment in foreign securities remains low, 0.68% of the assets were locked into foreign ordinary shares and 0.09% in foreign money market.
The breakdown shows that of the sum, Federal Government securities accounted for N6.844 trillion.
This came through investment in FG bond to the tune of N4.476 trillion, Treasury Bills N2.263 trillion and agency Bond of N10.69 billion.
Sukuk bond gulped N80.525 billion, while Green Bond window was N13.376 billion.
At 5.13%, investment in domestic shares closed the period at N492.082 billion in the period while fund placement in corporate debt securities totalled N621.955 billion.
In relative term, corporate debt as proportion of total pension fund assets pitched at 6.49% in the month of September, 2019.
The breakdown however shows that N572.417 billion of the sum or 5.97% of the aggregate pension assets was invested in corporate bonds.
Also, corporate infrastructure bonds were valued at N17.793 billion while Green bonds were N31.744 billion.
Meanwhile, investment placement in local money market securities accounted for 11.21% of the pension fund asset in the period.
This translates to N1.074 trillion with the breakdown showing that significant chuck of this investment class were handed to banks.
Specifically, investment in banks was N951.280 billion by the end of September, thus accounts for 9.93% of the pension fund assets in the period.
Further to that, N123.282 billion was channeled into commercial papers.
In mutual fund class, investment value under this category settled at N21.813 billion, REITs however accounted for significant big part at N11.91 billion as against open/close end funds that attracted N9.903 billion.
As part of its risk management strategy, investment in real estate properties gulped 2.42% of the pension fund assets totalled N231.482 billion.
Private equity funds, infrastructure fund, cash and other assets took N32.053 billion, N34.895 billion and N26.472 billion respectively.
By Julius Alagbe
