Opalesque Industry Updates - Although public pension plans and their corporate counterparts were hit equally hard by the global market crisis, a new study from Greenwich Associates shows they are responding to historic funding shortfalls in dramatically different fashions. With an eye toward constraints imposed by tougher accounting rules, companies that sponsor defined benefit pension plans are shedding risk from their investment portfolios and are apparently preparing for the inevitability of much higher cash contribution requirements. Public pension funds, meanwhile, are shifting money into riskier asset classes in what is looking like a “swing-for-the-fences” attempt to close shortfalls with future investment returns that far outpace those of the broad market. “Corporate funds have traditionally invested much larger portions of their assets in equities, while public funds took a more conservative stance with bigger allocations to fixed income,” explains Greenwich Associates consultant Dev Clifford. “As a result of their differing strategies in the wake of the crisis, public pension funds and corporate funds are approaching parity in their U.S. equity allocations, and public funds are making and planning meaningful investments in private equity, international stocks, hedge funds and real estate.” The typical U.S. defined benefit pension plan saw the value of its assets fall by approximately 19% from 2008 to 2009 before the recovery that began in March-April last year, bringing the overall value of assets in the portfolios of U.S. defined benefit plans down to levels last seen four to five years ago. Although recovering markets reversed some of those declines, asset values have yet to return to those seen in 2007. At the same time, the value of pension liabilities soared due to persistently low interest rates and the demographics of an aging population. The resulting damage to pension funding status was sudden and severe. Among public pension funds, the combination of growing liabilities and a drop in asset values to $2.7 trillion in 2009 from $3.2 trillion in 2008 depressed average solvency ratios to 83% from 86%. More than 30% of U.S. public funds now have solvency ratios of 79% or lower, and more than one in 10 public funds have a solvency ratio of 69% or lower. Average solvency ratios for state funds declined to 80% in 2009 from 84% in 2008 and average ratios for municipal funds dropped to 84% from 88%. Average funding ratios for the projected benefits obligation of U.S. corporate pension funds fell to 80% in 2009 from 101% in 2008. The proportion of U.S. corporate pensions funded at less than 85% rose from approximately 8% in 2008 to 57% in 2009 and the share funded at less than 75% increased from less than 1% to 31%.
Differing Responses to Funding Crisis Free from these accounting concerns, public pension funds are moving in the opposite direction, increasing allocations to higher risk asset classes with the potential to generate higher levels of investment returns. Although public pension funds as a group also allowed U.S. equity allocations to fall last year, they are planning to cut fixed-income allocations in coming years while shifting assets into private equity, international stocks, hedge funds and equity real estate. Approximately 17% of public pension funds say they plan to reduce significantly fixed-income allocations over the next two to three years, with only about 9% planning reductions. An impressive 23% of public funds say they are planning to make significant additions to private equity allocations between now and 2012. Almost 20% of publics plan significant increases to international equity allocations and about 18% plan to significantly increase hedge fund allocations by 2012. In each of these asset classes, these proportions far outweigh the much smaller shares of public funds planning to decrease these allocations.
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Industry Updates
18% of public funds in the U.S. expect to significantly increase hedge fund allocations by 2012 - Greenwich Associates
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
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