Premium Pensions RSA fund led the performance ranking of Nigeria’s RSA Pension funds for the first six months of the year 2018.
This is according to analysis by Quantitative Financial Analytics. The Premium Pensions RSA fund earned a 1.25% return in June to extend its YTD performance to 7.58%. ARM Pensions RSA, which led the pack last year, came second with 6.73% while Crusader Pensions RSA and Stanbic IBTC Pensions RSA jointly took the third position with 6.22%. Every RSA fund made positive return ranging from 5.04%, recorded by APT Pensions RSA fund to 7.58%, recorded by Premium Pensions RSA fund
This performance by Premium Pensions RSA is consistent with its 2017 performance where it recorded 7.5% and a slight improvement over its 2016 performance of 6.11% for the first six months of the year.
Though that performance is a déjà vu for Premium Pensions RSA, the 2018 performance so far is far below corresponding period performance for 2017 for most of the funds.
For example, by June 30th, 2017, APT Pensions RSA which led the pack then, had generated a 12.59% return compared with its 2018 return of 5.04%. The same scenario goes for Crusader Pensions RSA whose 2018 midyear return of 6.65% is much lower that its 2017 midyear return of 10.31%
Though the performance is not as rosy as 2017, the NSE pension index did not do much better. The index which ended 2017 with a performance of 42.92%, only managed to generate 8% midyear return.
The positive but unimpressive performance of pension funds so far in 2018 may not be unconnected with equity market volatility amidst the declining stock prices that have come to characterize most of 2018.
