World’s top pension funds value at $8.1 trillion – study

The 300 largest pension funds in the world grew assets under management by 15.1 percent in 2017 to reach a combined value of $18.1 trillion, a study on Monday showed.

According to the research from Willis Towers Watson’s Thinking Ahead Institute, the growth was more than double 2016’s 6.1 percent increase.

Willis Towers Watson is a leading consultant and investment advisor to pension funds.

Reuters reported that the top 20 funds accounted for 41.1 percent of the assets, led by Japan’s $1.4 trillion Government Pension Investment fund and Norway’s $1.1 trillion Government Pension Fund.

Meanwhile Nigeria’s pension assets hit N8.23 trillion as at September 3, 2018, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported.

The NBS reaffirmed that the current standing of Nigeria’s pension assets under the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) stood at N8.23 trillion.

Data released at the weekend by the NBS, showed that N8.23 trillion was recorded in the second quarter of 2018 as against N7.943 trillion recorded in the first quarter.

According to NBS, the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) bonds have the highest weight percentage of 49.08 per cent of the total PFA.

According to the bureau, 8,136,202 workers were registered under the pension scheme in the period under review, compared to 7,975,976 registered workers in the first quarter.