Spain’s occupational pension funds made average investment returns of 7.14% over calendar year 2014, according to the country’s Investment and Pension Fund Association (INVERCO).

The results indicate a moderate decline over the previous year’s return of 7.7%, taking average returns for the three years to 31 December 2014 to 7.73%, and for the five years to that date, to 5.09%.

Total assets under management for the occupational sector rose to €34.2bn, an increase of 1.2% over the previous year.

However, the number of participants fell slightly to 2m.

In contrast, assets for individual pension plans totalled €64.1bn at end-2014, covering 7.8m participants.

According to INVERCO, the biggest single component of pension fund portfolios is invested in Spanish government bonds – 35.3% as at end-December 2014, up from 33.9% the previous year.

A further 18.6% is invested in Spanish corporate bonds, compared with 20.7% at end-2013.

Equities have risen slightly over last year as a percentage of both domestic and foreign segments, with Spanish equities making up 8.6% of portfolios as at end-2014.

An average 11.5% was invested in foreign equities.

The cash component at end-2014 had risen to 8.9%, from 6.9% the previous year.