Portuguese pension funds continued to invest a high proportion of total assets in fixed income vehicles, according to data published by Watson Wyatt at the end of June. Total assets invested in bonds accounted for 53.2% of the portfolios, with the equity proportion representing 27.6%.
Some 50.8% of pension fund assets were invested in domestic bonds, with only 2.4% in foreign fixed income investments.
On the equity side, Portuguese stocks only attracted 6.7% of assets, down from the 8.2% registered in June 2001. The total exposure to domestic equities, including Euro-land stocks, was 22.5%, whereas exposure to foreign equities only represented 5.1% of pension assets.
There has been a quite significant growth in the real estate investment area, which in June 2000 represented 6.4% of total assets, reaching 10.1% 12 months later. Real estate investment funds attracted 4.1% of pension assets with the remaining 6% invested in direct property holdings.
The proportion invested in cash and money market funds remained almost unchanged from the end of second-quarter 2001 to second-quarter 2002, representing 9.15% of investments, and only went up to 11.6% of total assets at the end of September last year.
These figures correspond to the median asset allocations of the closed-end pension funds.