Domestic bonds are still the investment choice for Austrian pension funds, representing 54% of total assets at the end of 2000, according to Watson Wyatt. Foreign bonds attracted 12% of pension fund assets, resulting in total exposure to fixed income vehicles of 66%.
Exposure to equity investments among pension funds in Austria started increasing during the past five years or so. At the end of 2000 this amounted to 33% of total assets. However, the small size of the Austrian stock market resulted in most of the assets going to equity investments abroad and, in many cases, outside the Euro-zone. Investments in Euroland, including Austrian, equities represented around 13% of total pension assets, whereas exposure to foreign stocks accounted for 20% of the total average pension portfolio.
Pensions funds in Austria have not shown much interest in property investments, which at the end of 2000 represented only 0.5% of the total portfolio. The same proportion of assets were going into cash and other types of investment during the same period.