BNY Mellon Asset Servicing unveils latest CAPS Pooled Pension Fund results
Statistics released today by BNY Mellon Asset Servicing show that for the first time in 12 months, balanced pooled funds failed to achieve a real rate of return. During the third quarter of 2007, funds achieved a median return of 0.1% against a return of 0.3% for the retail prices index.
However, the performance over the previous three quarters means that balanced funds still achieved a double digit return of 11.5% over the year. This represents a real rate of return of 7.6%. Balanced funds also achieved double digit performances over both three and five years, with median returns of 15.0% p.a. and 14.2% p.a. respectively.
During Q3 2007, the majority of active pooled fund managers within our universe failed to achieve an outperformance when compared with their respective indices. The only exceptions to this were property pooled fund managers who achieved a median return of -0.9%, outperforming the CAPS property index by 0.5%, and Pacific Ex Japan Equity managers who achieved an outperformance of 0.6%.
UK Equity pooled fund managers achieved a median return of -2.6% during the quarter, and underperformed the FTSE All Share by 0.8%. Overseas Equity pooled managers fared better and achieved a median return of 1.7%; however, they still underperformed the index by 0.7%.
There were mixed results in the major equity markets during Q3 2007, with index returns ranging from 13.5% for Pacific ex Japan Equities, to -3.1% for Japanese Equities. Positive index returns were also achieved by Emerging Market, North American and European ex UK Equities with returns of 12.7%, 1.1% and 0.8% respectively. Over the quarter, UK Equities struggled in comparison, returning -1.8%.
There were positive returns in the bond markets, with UK Bonds and Long Term UK Bonds returning 4.1% and 4.6% respectively. Both Overseas Bonds and Index-Linked Gilts also provided positive returns, achieving returns of 5.6% and 5.1% respectively. By contrast, Property struggled during Q3 2007 returning -1.4%. This was the first time since Q2 1995 that this sector failed to achieve a positive return.
At the end of Quarter 3 2007, balanced pooled fund weightings in UK Equities had reached an all time low of 44.7%. This represents a reduction of 1.6% over the quarter, which can be mostly attributed to poor relative performance. Managers moved money out of Europe ex UK Equities, and at the end of September 14.5% was held in this sector, compared with 15.3% at the end of the previous quarter.
Despite manager movements away from the sector, weightings in Pacific ex Japan Equities were boosted to 6.2% as a result of strong relative performance. Emerging Market Equities also benefited from strong relative performance, and this combined with manager movements meant that weightings reached an all time high of 4.3% at the end of September.
UK Bond weightings were boosted due to a combination of manager movements and strong relative performance during Q3 2007, however Overseas Bond and Index-Linked Gilt weightings remained fairly static. Weightings in Cash saw an increase of 1.1% which was largely the result of managers moving money into this sector. By contrast Property weightings dropped by 0.2% to 0.7% as money was moved out of the sector. This represents a new quarter end low, since our records began.
Commenting on the results, Daniel Hall, BNY Mellon Asset Servicing’s Publications and Statistics Manager, said: “While the credit crunch impacted on UK equity performance in August, the majority of the damage was done in July when the UK equity market fell by 3.3%. Meanwhile the big success story of the quarter has been the strong performance in Pacific ex Japan and Emerging Markets. Over the quarter pooled managers achieved median returns of 14.1% and 11.8% respectively in these sectors, with the majority of these gains being made in September.”
BNY Mellon Asset Servicing’s Pooled Pension Fund Database covers the largest and most representative sample available to UK pension funds’ trustees. BNY Mellon Asset Servicing currently covers 76 separate asset managers who manage over £439 billion in pooled funds, both balanced and specialist.