At the end of July 2023, the NAV of the Croatian pension funds equaled EUR 19.2bn, which is an increase of 8.8% YoY, and 1.4% MoM.

Recently, the Croatian Financial Services Supervisory Agency (HANFA) published the latest monthly report with details regarding the performance of the Croatian financial markets. In this article, we’ll focus on the data for the pension funds, as they’re the largest institutional investors in Croatia. According to the report, the NAV of the Croatian pension funds equaled EUR 19.2bn, which is an increase of 1.4% MoM, 9.3% YTD, and 8.8% YoY. Furthermore, the net contributions into the funds amounted to EUR 109.9m in July, while on a YTD basis, it amounted to EUR 705.7m.

Croatian mandatory pension funds AUM structure change (January 2018 – July 2023, EURm)

Source: HANFA, InterCapital Research

In terms of the changes by asset classes, on a monthly basis, the largest growth was recorded by deposits and cash, which increased by 48.1%, or EUR 206.7m, followed by shares, which grew by EUR 112.6m, or 2.7%, receivables, which increased by EUR 64.1m, or 3%, and bonds, which increased by EUR 49.7m, or 0.4%. On the other hand, other assets recorded a decrease of 87.8%, or EUR 182.2m, and the money market holdings decreased by 18.5%, or EUR 59.2m.

Turning our attention to the yearly basis, the largest increase was recorded by shareholdings, which increased by EUR 666.5m, or 18.7%, followed by bonds, which increased by EUR 442.9m, or 3.9%, receivables, which increased by EUR 307.4m, or 16.2%, and the money market holdings, which increased by EUR 141.5m, or 119.2%. On the other hand, other assets recorded a decrease of 75%, or EUR 75.8m, while deposits and cash remained roughly unchanged (-0.9%, – EUR 5.7m) YoY.

Currently, the largest share of the investments is still into bond holdings, which account for 61.7% of the total, decreasing by 0.61 p.p. MoM, and 2.89 p.p. YoY. Following them, we have shares at 22.1%, an increase of 0.28 p.p. MoM, and 1.85 p.p. YoY, and investment funds, which accounted for 11.5% of the total, and recorded an increase of 0.18 p.p. MoM, and 0.73 p.p. YoY.

Current AUM of Croatian mandatory pension funds (July 2023, % of the total)

Source: HANFA, InterCapital Research