Though Institutional investors have progressively diversified portfolios away from bonds and equities by adding allocations to alternative investments such as private equity, real estate, infrastructure and hedge funds, official data on pension fund investment in alternatives – and in particular infrastructure – remains scarce. One valuable source of information is the “Annual Survey of Large Pension Funds and Public Pension Reserve Funds – report on long-term investments” conducted by OECD, and covering beyond OECD: IOPS countries, G20 member countries and APEC economies, based on data gathered for the year ending 2020.
The just released 2021 survey reviews the trends in assets and asset allocation of 101 large pension funds (LPFs) and public pension reserve funds (PPRFs) that responded to the annual survey, which in total managed USD 10.3 trillion in assets in 2020. The infrastructure investment survey includes data from 60 funds out of the total 101 funds that returned completed questionnaires. By and large, despite COVID, Pension Funds have continued to see significant growth in their AuM over 2020 ( at +13% on average for large Pension Funds and +9.8% for public pension reserve funds -or PPRF).
Most previously observed characteristics for investment in infrastructure remain valid, with allocation to unlisted infrastructure remaining in the low single-digits for most funds, with the exception of Australian and Canadian Pension Funds (close to or around 10%).
A common feature is that most Pension Funds only invest in Brownfield infrastructure. In terms of geographic allocation, a very limited part goes to non-developed foreign markets (usually emerging Europe & Asia)
Access report here: https://www.oecd.org/finance/survey-large-pension-funds.htm