Nigeria’s total pension fund assets grew to a record highest value of N13.61 trillion in January 2022, representing 1.4% or N183.8 billion rise over the value of the assets totaling N13.42 trillion as of December 2021.
The latest pension assets value was contained in the unaudited report by the regulatory authorities on the pension funds industry portfolio for the month under review.
According to the report, the growth in assets is partly attributable to the increasing adoption of contributory pension scheme (CPS) by more sub-national governments and private sector entities.
For instance, the report indicated that the total number of RSA registration increased to 9.55 million, representing 13.7% of the total labour force population in the country. The improvement recorded in the month of January was 9.2% higher than the N168.29 billion recorded in the previous month.
An analysis of the growth in pension fund assets showed that he RSA fund II accounted for most of the fund contribution with N5.96 trillion, representing 43.8% of the total pension funds while the RSA Fund III followed with N3.6 trillion, representing 26.5% of the total assets. Similarly, the fund III category increased by N69.58 billion in the month under review.
Also, investment in corporate debt securities increased by 5.69% month-on-month to N997.03 billion as of the end of January 2022, representing an improvement of N53.69 billion compared to N943.34 billion recorded as of the previous month.
Similarly, investment in local money securities increased by N259.24 billion in the review period to stand at N2.28 trillion.
In terms of real estate investment, PFAs’ investment rose marginally by N1.05 billion in January 2022 to stand at N157.84 billion, from N156.8 billion recorded as of December 2021.
A further analysis of the unaudited report reflected that PFAs increased investment in local equities market with over N960.42 billion investments in the capital market, representing N45.12 billion higher than the N915.31 billion recorded at the end of December 2021 financial year.
Their improved investment in the local bourse follows the positive performance of the market as the All-Share index gained 9.15% in January 2022 to close at 46,624.67 points while the market capitalization gained to N25.1 trillion.
However, the PFAs reduced their exposure in the foreign equities market as their investments dropped by N12.01 billion to N110.48 billion in January 2022, representing 9.81% lower than the N122.49 billion recorded as of the end of December 2021 investments.
