Savings got better by the end of the year – Newspaper Kommersant No. 10 (7455) dated 01/20/2023

The fourth quarter of 2022 turned out to be successful for many management companies working with citizens’ pension savings. In particular, the state management company VEB.RF showed the best result in several years. Increased performance and private managers with portfolios with a large share of shares. But this was not enough to offset the losses of previous quarters.

At the end of 2022, the state management company (GUK) earned 192.7 billion rubles for the “silent people” who placed their pension savings in the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation on an expanded portfolio and a portfolio of government securities. investment income. This was announced on Thursday, January 19 by VEB. The yield on the expanded portfolio amounted to 9.7%, on the portfolio of government securities – 10.24%.

For the expanded portfolio, this is the best result since 2016, while for the government securities portfolio, the indicator was higher in 2019.

Compared to the previous quarter, the GMC has significantly improved its performance. The yield of the expanded portfolio increased by 1.99 percentage points (p.p.), the yield of the government securities portfolio – by 0.95 p.p. (see “Kommersant” dated October 14, 2022).

The growth of indicators became possible due to the positive revaluation of bonds in the fourth quarter of last year (then OFZ yields for the quarter decreased by 50–150 bp) and the return of the GAM to the market valuation of portfolios from December 1, explained Alexander Popov, head of the trust management department at VEB. Until December 2022, the GMC used the Central Bank support measure, valuing a significant part of the portfolio at prices as of February 18, 2022.

The GUK was unable to beat inflation at the end of the year (11.9%), although it noticeably overtook private management companies. For the two portfolios of reported companies, as well as Kommersant’s estimate based on the reporting of other management companies for three quarters, financial indicators for the year ranged from a profit of 6.6% to a loss of 12.5%.

According to the results of nine months, losses in the segment of private management companies reached 21%. Improvement of indicators was promoted by the recovery of the stock market, which occurred in the fourth quarter.

According to the results of the last quarter, the Moscow Exchange index grew by 10%, although it lost over 40% for the whole year.

Nevertheless, managers are in no hurry to reduce investments in shares, reallocating between sectors at best. “The portfolio structure by types of assets did not change in the fourth quarter. The share of shares remains unchanged,” says Vasily Ivanov, Managing Director of Otkritie Management Company.

Artem Mayorov, Director of the Asset Management Department at Ingosstrakh-Investments Management Company, said that by the end of the year they “bought a little more shares”, bringing the fund to the aggressive index of pension savings of the Moscow Exchange RUPAI (with a share of shares of about 40%). Dmitry Postolenko, head of the fixed income management department at Pervaya Management Company, says that in the risky part of the portfolio, the company has increased the rate on securities of exporters and banks.

However, some managers have maintained a conservative approach to investment. “In the fourth quarter, we slightly reduced the share of corporate papers and significantly increased the share of short OFZs on the drawdown in early October,” said Evgeny Zhornist, portfolio manager at Alfa Capital. Last year, VEB acquired OFZ in the amount of 144 billion rubles. and 160 billion rubles. corporate bonds. “The main volume of bonds was purchased in the fourth quarter after the return of the Ministry of Finance and corporate borrowers to the borrowing market,” said Alexander Popov. In the fourth quarter, the Ministry of Finance issued OFZs for a record 3.1 trillion rubles, corporate borrowers attracted more than 1.7 trillion rubles.

With regard to 2023, market private traders are quite optimistic. Yevgeny Zhornist does not rule out a further decline in inflation, lowering the key rate of the Central Bank and the yields of long OFZs.

“Under such conditions, we can expect that the results of the year will be no worse than the results of 2022,” he notes. At the same time, the company maintains a conservative approach to investing. In the case of more aggressive portfolios, the situation, as in the past year, will largely depend on the dynamics of the Moscow Exchange index. Artem Mayorov notes that in case of positive dynamics of the stock market, the portfolio for the aggressive RUPAI index will grow very strongly.

Vitaly Gaidaev