SWITZERLAND - Preliminary calculations by Credit Suisse suggest Swiss pension funds delivered a 2.32% return in the first quarter and surprising asset allocation revelations while Swisscanto's research could show there has been a significant funding level increase.
"Interestingly, contrary to expectations stemming from the positive performance of the stock market, the equity component increased only slightly, while CHF-denominated bonds and the real estate component in particular are weighted more heavily," said Credit Suisse.
Further details will be available in two weeks but Credit Suisse noted the real estate quota reached the high of 19% experienced in Q2 2009.
While the bank's pension fund index had still performed slightly negatively in January with a loss of 0.22% on investments, February and March brought positive results of 1.13% and 1.41% respectively.
Meanwhile, Swisscanto's calculations revealed the average funding level of 144 Swiss Pensionskassen has increased from 98.5% to 100.1% over the last year.
For private sector funds, the increase was 1.8 percentage points to 106.2% and 1.5 percentage points for public sector funds to 93.5%.
Just 20% of Pensionskassen remained underfunded at the end of March 2010 analysis of public sector funds only suggests 55% of those Pensionskassen are not fully funded.
Swisscanto calculated the average performance of Pensionskassen was 2.5% in the three months of this year.
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