According to the 2013 edition of Pension Markets in Focus, pension fund assets achieved high returns in almost all OECD countries in 2012, with a real return greater than 5% in 18 countries.
All institutional investors in the OECD, including investment funds, insurance companies, pension funds and other entities, experienced growth of their assets in 2012.
Institutional investors totalled USD 78.2 trillion in 2012, with USD 30.0 trillion coming from investment funds, USD 24.5 trillion from insurance companies, USD 21.8 trillion from pension funds and USD 1.9 trillion from other investors
Pension fund assets exhibited an average annual growth rate of 7.4% over the period 2009-12. Private pension assets in the OECD totalled USD 32.1 trillion in 2012, of which 67.9% were pension funds (USD 21.8 trillion), followed by bank and investment companies managed funds (USD 5.9 trillion, or 18.5% of total assets), pension insurance contracts (USD 4.1 trillion, or 12.8%) and book reserve plans (USD 0.2 trillion, or 0.8%). In 2012, pension fund assets exceeded 90% of total assets in the funded pension system in Australia, Chile, the Czech Republic, Finland, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Mexico, Portugal and the Slovak Republic.
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In absolute terms, the United States still owned the majority of assets under management of all the OECD countries, with assets worth USD 11.6 trillion in 2012. In relative terms, however, the weight of assets held by pension funds in the US shrank from 67.6% in 2001 to 53.4% in 2012.
Other countries with large pension fund systems include the United Kingdom with assets in 2012 worth USD 2.3 trillion and a share of 11% of OECD pension fund market; Japan, with USD 1.4 trillion (6.7%); Australia with USD 1.4 trillion (6.3%); the Netherlands with USD 1.3 trillion (5.8%); Canada with USD 1.2 trillion (5.5%); Switzerland with USD 0.7 trillion (3.4%).
The report is available at http://www.oecd.org/pensions/PensionMarketsInFocus2013.pdf
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Pension funds achieve high returns in most OECD countries
