Laborfonds – The dinamica sub-fund for Laborfonds, the Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol regional pension fund, finished 2020 with a net performance of 9.93%. “The linea dinamica, turned into an equity [investment] line from 1 July, was a top performer among all the national pension funds,” said chair Werner Gramm.

The linea garantita sub-fund recorded a net performance of 0.14%, while the scheme’s prudente etica option, which follows ethical, good governance and social responsibility standards, recorded a net return of 2.89%. The linea bilanciata, with assets of €2.6bn invested in the real economy, achieved a net result of 4.80%.

Laborfonds’ total assets at the end of 2020 reached €3.34bn. Its investment options’ performance was the result of a high degree of diversification, a solid strategic asset allocation and choices made by the managers, including BlackRock, it said. The asset managers’ investment decisions ended up protecting the fund’s assets in times of negative market trends, especially in the first months of last year, it added.

Its number of members increased by 2,716 to a total of 127,000.

Pegaso – The dinamico sub-fund for Fondo Pensione Complementare Pegaso – the contractual pension fund for employees in the utilities sector – recovered from a return of -8.06% in the first quarter of 2020 to close the year with positive returns of 5.32%, well above its benchmark. Pegaso recorded positive performances for all its sub-funds in 2020.

The fund’s bilanciato option returned 2.47% while the garantito returned 0.25, but this was below its benchmark. The bilanciato option dropped to -4.96% and the garantito to -2.10% in Q1 2020. Since then, Pegaso reviewed its strategic asset allocation halfway through the life cycle of its management mandates to strike an optimal balance between returns and volatility.

The fund expanded its allocation universe, and in turn diversification, for equities by rebalancing the share of geographic components, and for bonds by increasing the share of corporate securities due to negative rates of most government bonds. The fund bet on diversification to seize market opportunities to guarantee positive returns.

Byblos – The second-pillar scheme for the paper, publishing and media industries recorded positive results for its bilanciato and dinamico investment funds, but negative for its garantito fund last year. The dinamico fund hit returns of 7.07%, above its 6.40% benckmark. The bilanciato fund recorded 3.03% returns, below its 4.72% benchmark. The garantito fund recorded returns of -0.06% last year against a benchmark of 0.29%.

The number of members investing in the dinamico fund stood at 1,049 as of 31 December 2020, 3% of total Byblos’ membership. The bilanciato fund counted 29,225 enrolled, which accounts for 31.76% of total membership. The garantito fund had 8,181 members, or 21% of total membership.

Cometa – The national supplementary pension fund for the metal industry has recorded positive results for the majority of its investment options. The sicurezza 2020, which started in June last year, reached 4.97% returns. The TFR silente, also launched in June last year, hit 4.69%, while the reddito returned 1.52%, the monetario plus 0.51% and crescita 0.42%. The options sicurezza and sicurezza 2015, which closed last May, ended with negative performances of 0.40% and 0.20%, respectively.

During the pandemic, Cometa continued to prudently manage its resources, monitor markets and communicating with its asset managers to contain the impact of volatility and exploiting various investment opportunities. This led to overall positive results in 2020, it said. The options sicurezza and TFR silente did not suffer from the impact of the pandemic in the earliest months of 2020. The sicurezza and sicurezza 2015 also avoided the impact of the pandemic in equity markets because they mainly invested in liquidity.

FondoPoste – The pension fund for Italian postal workers achieved returns for its bilanciato sub-fund, net of costs and taxes, of 6.05% in 2020, while returns for its garantito sub-fund stood at 2.29%. In the last 10 years, total returns for its bilanciato fund was 50.36%, which corresponds to 4.16% on average per year, and 20.48% for the garantito fund, corresponding to 1.88% average per year.

Gomma Plastica – The supplementary pension fund for workers in the rubber, electrical and related cables and plastics sector, considered returns in 2020 “in line” with the performances recorded in the last few years, despite a difficult year.  Its dinamico sub-fund recorded returns for 2.53% in 2020, against a 3.75% in the last five years. Returns for its bilanciato sub-fund stood at 4.65% in 2020 compared to 3.75% in the last five years, while and its conservativo sub-fund ended last year with 0.11% performance against a 0.41% in the last five years.

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