Large pension funds do not invest more effectively than smaller pension funds
Gepubliceerd: 04 december 2024
Door: Jacob Bikker Jeroen Meringa
One of the key missions of pension funds is to maximise returns on pension investments. The five largest pension funds in the Netherlands allocate their assets differently among possible investment products compared to the smaller pension funds. This allocation strategy has positively impacted their net returns over the past decade without significantly increasing their risk exposure. Additionally, they benefit from economies of scale when investing their assets. However, these large pension funds have lost their returns advantage due to less effective interest rate risk hedging strategies. Furthermore, performance fees – paid almost exclusively by the largest funds – negatively impact net returns, except for fees associated with private equity and hedge funds.
Keywords: Pension fund investment returns; scale economies; investment allocation; pension funds size-return relationship; performance fees; consolidation
JEL codes G23
Working paper no. 822
822 - Large pension funds do not invest more effectively than smaller pension funds
Research highlights:
- Large pension funds have (successfully) invested in higher-yielding and riskier investments.
- But they lost returns by hedging their interest rate risk on investments less. On balance, over 2007-2022, they did no better than small pension funds.
- Further consolidation of pension funds can lead to large additional investment returns due to economies of scale and the potential for more higher-yielding, riskier investments.
- Overall, performance fees – paid almost exclusively by the largest funds –have impacted net returns negatively. Focussing on asset classes: performance fees had negative impact on net returns for fixed assets, stocks and real estate, while having positive impacts on private equity and hedge funds
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