Ngozi Amuche
Nigeria’s Pension Fund Assets increased investments in FGN bonds by N935billion to N6.64trillion in the nine months ended September 2020.
This is according to a new report released on pension fund assets by the National Pension Commission, showing that the total value of pension assets for the first nine months of the year rose by 10.90 percent to N11.57 trillion in the review period.
According to the report, most of the pension fund assets were invested in FGN bonds.
Hence, shares of FGN bonds to total assets climbed to 57.41 percent (or N6.64 trillion) in the period under review, from a 54.70 percent (or N5.71 trillion) in January 2020.
However, PFAs’ investments in T-bills declined sharply year to date by 102.90 percent to N780.57 billion as at September 2020, from N1.58 trillion recorded in January 2020 as treasury bills yields plummeted to ridiculously below single-digit.
Given the reduction in the weight of FGN securities to the total assets (it fell to 65.29 percent in Sept. 2020 from 70.96 percent in January 2020) as money flow to T- bills dropped.
Total invested fund placed with banks as a percentage of total pension fund assets stood at 15.09 percent (or N1.75 trillion) in September 2020, rising from 10.13 percent (N1.06 trillion) in January 2020 while investment in commercial papers, constituting 2.27 percent of investment, which increased to N0.26 trillion from N0.12 trillion.
However, funds invested in real estate properties as a fraction of the total pension fund assets, dropped to 1.29 percent (or N0.15 trillion) from 2.08 percent (or N0.22 trillion) in the period under review.
Meanwhile, pension fund assets investment in the domestic equities market moderated to N0.59 trillion in September 2020 from N0.60 trillion in January 2020; thus, reducing the weight of total pension funds in local equities market to 5.06 percent from 5.71 percent, respectively.