SWITZERLAND – Swiss pension funds have recorded negative investment returns for the first six months of this year with a median return of –2.2%.
The figures compare with the marginally positive value of 1.5% returned for the whole of 2000.

Compiled jointly by the Swiss Pension Funds Association (ASIP) and consultant Watson Wyatt, the statistics also reveal that by the end of June 2001, Swiss pension fund asset allocation revealed a 2.6% lower weighting of Swiss equities compared to the year-end 2000 figure.

However, Swiss equities still accounted for just under half the total equity investment. This had a negative impact on equity performance since the SPI showed a 10.5% lower yield in the first half than the MSCI World index ex Switzerland.

The survey measures around SFR80bn in invested capital for the 60 or so participating pension funds - equivalent to around 20% of the investments of all the pension funds affiliated to ASIP. The range of investments by the individual funds is between SFr10m and several billion francs.