VEB has surpassed inflation

The profitability of investing pension savings of “silent people” in the first half of 2011 turned out to be higher than inflation

Suzanne Camara In the first half of 2011, the VEB State Corporation earned future retirees an income of 5.91%, surpassing inflation. But in annual terms, the return on pension savings was again lower than inflation, as was the case last year.

In the first half of 2011, Vnesheconombank provided a return on its expanded portfolio - the pension savings of the so-called “silent people” are invested in it, that is, citizens who have not made a special order on their account - at the level of 5.91% per annum. For the portfolio of government securities, in which the funds of citizens who independently chose VEB as a management company are invested, the yield turned out to be higher - 7.54% per annum. But the funds of such clients make up less than 1% of all pension savings managed by the state corporation.

Reference VEB's investments in the conservative portfolio by the end of the first quarter amounted to 3.235 billion rubles, in the expanded portfolio - 941.047 billion rubles.

Both profitability indicators turned out to be higher than inflation, which gained 5% over the six months. But in annual terms, the profitability of the expanded portfolio reached only 5.65% by June 30. Inflation was significantly higher at 9.4%.

The data for the first half of 2011 is worse than last year’s indicator: in the first 6 months of 2010, the return on the expanded portfolio reached 9.79% per annum, and on the portfolio of government securities - 11.74% per annum, with inflation at 4.4%. At the same time, at the end of last year, VEB failed to keep the pension savings of the “silent people” from depreciating: the return on the expanded portfolio was 7.62% with inflation of 8.8%.

The result of VEB, taking into account the restrictions that are imposed on it, can be considered satisfactory, the managers admit.

The profitability of VEB’s investments was determined by the favorable market conditions for Russian Eurobonds and highly liquid ruble bonds, says Alexander Osin, chief economist at Finam Management.

The results of private managers with conservative strategies should show slightly better results, but portfolios with a large share of stocks in the first half of the year may even end up in the negative zone due to the weak dynamics of Russian stocks at the end of the first and second quarters, adds the portfolio manager at Allianz ROSNO Asset Management » Oleg Popov . Indeed, in the first half of 2011, the MICEX indices of government and corporate bonds increased, respectively, by 4.25% and 5.05% in absolute terms. “Therefore, VEB will look relatively good against the general background,” Popov concludes.

“At the end of the first quarter, the fund was in 41st place in terms of profitability of pension savings, 20 management companies offered over 10%,” recalls Russ-Invest analyst Semyon Nemtsov .

Over the entire period since the beginning of the pension reform, since 2002, the profitability of VEB management companies has lagged behind the results of private management companies.

According to the PensiaMarket portal, the average annual return on pension savings of 8 private management companies exceeded inflation during all years of pension reform. And over the entire period, 24 private companies showed an increase in pension savings of more than 102%, while VEB for the same period showed an increase of 67.78%.

“The state management company VEB adheres to a fairly conservative strategy and invests the money of future pensioners in debt securities with maximum reliability, thus minimizing the risks of reducing pension funds, while simultaneously limiting the expected profitability,” Ksenia Shulgina, an analyst at Univer Capital Investment Company, explains these results. Such a strategy can be more successful only during periods of falling stock market, as was the case in the crisis year of 2008, when VEB showed the third result among all management companies at the end of the year with a profitability of -0.46%.

High inflation also makes it very difficult to implement an effective pension savings system, notes Osin.

VEB has surpassed inflation - Gazeta.Ru