Pension fund assets drop to N19.69 trillion in March – PenCom

Data from the National Pension Commission (PenCom) have revealed that Nigeria’s pension fund assets dropped marginally to N19.669 trillion for the period ended 31st March 2024.

This represents a marginal decrease of about 0.45% when compared with N19.759 trillion reported as net asset value(NAV) in February 2024.

This was contained in the commission’s monthly report for March 2024 released by PenCom and seen by Nairmetrics.

Portfolio allocation

According to the report, the total pension fund net asset value dropped to N19.669 trillion in March compared to N19.759 trillion reported a month earlier.

A closer look at the data reveals that investment in FGN securities continues to dominate portfolio allocation with about N12.200 trillion or 62.03% of total net asset value (NAV).

Pension Funds also allocated N2.058 trillion to corporate debt securities and N1.779 trillion to money market Instruments.

Investments in ordinary shares of local companies rose by 8.72% to N2.082 trillion from N1.915 trillion in February.

Fund allocation

Fund II, which is the default RSA Fund under the Multi-Fund Structure, maintained the largest share of the Active RSA Funds allocation with N8.331 trillion or 42.35% of the total fund NAV.

Fund III also rose by 1.19% from N5.112 trillion to N5.173 trillion maintaining its second position for fund allocation.

Meanwhile, RSA membership for March 2024 rose by 0.22% to 10,280,956 from 10, 258,611 members in February 2024.

Optics

Pension funds’ NAVs have risen from N14.9 trillion in December 2022 to N19.7 trillion in March, representing or a whopping N4.8 trillion or 32.21% increase.

For context, between 2021 and 2022, pension fund assets rose by just N1.57 trillion from N13.42 trillion to N14.99 trillion.

The rise is likely linked to a combination of a surge in pension fund contributions and a rise in portfolio values.

For example, FGN Securities has seen its Net Asset Values rise from N9.64 trillion in 2022 to N11.89 trillion as of March 2024.