Pension fund

A pension fund is in international parlance a self- organizational outsourced by the employer fund for the purpose of financing the occupational pensions for employees. In the USA the first pension fund of a company American Express was founded in 1875. The undertakings referred to as pension funds in Germany soft thereof significantly.

Refinements

The fund can be legally owned by the employer or have their own legal personality. In the latter case, the pension fund can be used by several employers. In this case, the pension funds are often in direct competition with each other and other investment opportunities. Often, employers can readily invested assets deducted from a pension fund and transfer it to another. Although workers often have direct claims against the pension funds, but only to the extent in which the pension fund has assets available. Guarantees on certain services, such as express insurers, pension funds grant usually only in the form of a guaranteed minimum payment, or - in the case of a defined benefit plan of the employer - in the amount of the commitment, the employer has an obligation to make both. This occurs especially if the fund achieved only an insufficiently high rate of return or has retracted due to capital market volatility losses.

Importance

Because of the large and long -term wealth accumulation pension funds are major investors in the international capital markets. The competition, in particular the opportunity at any time to transfer the assets of a pension fund to another, forcing them to pursue more short-term returns interests. Through the establishment of pension funds more and more savings of the population flow into the capital markets. Due to the often high reallocations of capital investment by pension funds based solely on short-term profits interests, it now comes again and again to significant effects on the capital markets.

Estimates by Morgan Stanley (quoted in The Economist in early 2008 ), according to pension funds worldwide hold values ​​of $ 20 trillion in assets, surpassing all other investors such as insurance companies, currency reserves, hedge funds and investments. Internationally important pension funds can be found in Japan, the U.S., Canada and the Netherlands.

The world's largest pension funds are:

  • Government Pension Investment Fund ( Nenkin Tsumitatekin Kanri Unyo Dokuritsu ), Japan: U.S. $ 1347 billion ( 2012)
  • Statens pensjonsfond, Norway: U.S. $ 650 billion ( 2012)
  • Algemeen Burgerlijk Pension Fund ( ABP), state pension fund in the Netherlands: U.S. $ 243 billion
  • California Public Employees' Retirement System ( CalPERS ), funded pension fund for 1.6 million active and retired state employees in California: U.S. $ 238 billion ( 2012)
  • U.S. federal employee pension funds: U.S. $ 211 billion
  • National Pension Service (NPS ); Korea: U.S. $ 190 billion
  • Pension fund municipal employee, Japan: U.S. $ 176 billion
  • Post pension fund, Taiwan: U.S. $ 154 billion
  • California State Teachers' Retirement System ( CalSTRS ): U.S. $ 147 billion
  • Pension fund of employees of the State of New York: U.S. $ 138 billion
  • Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Canada: 121.3 billion Canadian dollars (2007)
  • Vanuatu National Provident Fund, Vanuatu
  • Fiji National Provident Fund
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