Japan’s Teachers’ Mutual Aid Co-operative Society (Kyousyokuin) has send out a message that the fund plans to start invest in oversea alternative assets and diverge itself from Japan’s traditional investment products such as domestic bond. According to Bloomberg report, Japan holds the world’s second largest retirement pension money, around $3.36 trillion, but Japan was the only market among few others that had a drop in pension asset due to poor returns. (Please check out our reports on Pension Fund Association and Government Pension Investment Fund for comparison)
The change by Japan’s teacher pension in looking into oversea alternative investments is a tremendous breakthrough for conservative Japanese pension funds, and we predict more Japanese pensions will follow once a successful case is made.
The fund plans to invest 6 Billion Yen in oversea REITs starting from March of 2013. The fund invests following three principles efficiency, stability, and liquidity.
Here is the fund’s 2012 financial report.
| Year | Return(%) |
| 2010 | 0.54 |
| 2011 | 0.82 |
| 2012 | 1.54 |
| Year | Amount(Billion JPY) |
| 2010 | 703.924 |
| 2011 | 713.694 |
| 2012 | 783.104 |
| Type | Amount( Billion JPY) |
| Cash& Deposit | 23.570 |
| Call Loan | 41.130 |
| Trust | 9.030 |
| Securities | 510.493 |
| Insurance | 179.652 |
| Business Fixed Asset | 14.485 |
| Other | 4.744 |
| Total | 783.104 |
| Types | Amount (Billion JPY) |
| Total Asset | 783.104 |
| Contract Debt | 678.299 |
| Price Fluctuation | 4.949 |
| Other Debt | 41.415 |
| Net Asset | 58.441 |
| Asset Type | Amount (%) |
| Domestic Bond | 55.7 |
| Domestic Equity | 4.3 |
| Foreign Bond | 8.3 |
| Foreign Equity | 2.7 |
| Other | 0.3 |
| Life Insurance General Account | 24.7 |
| Cash, Deposit | 4.1 |
| Type | Amount (%) |
| Trust Bank | 58.9 |
| Investment Advisory Company | 5.5 |
| Life Insurance Company | 24.7 |
| In-house | 11.1 |