Korea's National Pension Service deeper in negative return rate in April

[Photo by MK DB]

South Korea’s National Pension Service, the country’s biggest institutional investor, has incurred a cumulative loss of 3.79 percent in its investment as of April this year, worsening 1.13 percentage points from a month earlier and sharply underperforming the annual return rate of 10.86 percent for 2021.

According to NPS's performance report to its top fund management commission on Friday, the public pension fund with 919.6 trillion won ($709 billion) assets under management generated an average of 10.59 percent return over the last three years with the annual rate recording 10.86 percent for 2021.

NPS’s operating return came to 11.34 percent in 2019 and 9.58 percent in 2020 as stock markets at home and abroad rallied on the retail trading boom.

It has not been lucky this year amid global-wide slump.

It recorded a negative return rate of 3.79 percent as of April.

By investment category, NPS lost 7.52 percent in its investment in Korean stocks, 6.03 percent in overseas stock investment, 4.02 percent in Korean bonds, and 0.64 percent in foreign debts. Alternative investment was the sole winner, returning 5.22 percent.

Separately, the commission approved an incentive pay of 67.7 percent on base salary, 19 percentage points less than the previous year’s all-time high rate of 86.7 percent.

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