April 2023 Monthly Report

PENSION FUNDS

SECOND PILLAR PENSION FUNDS

At the end of April 2023, mandatory pension funds (MPFs) had 2,195,339 members, i.e. 3,831 (0.17%) members more than in the previous month. Category B funds had 84.6% of all MPF members, while category A and category C funds had 11.5% and 3.9% of all MPF members respectively. Out of 4,656 new members, 4,527 (97.2%) were automatically assigned by Regos. Termination of membership due to retirement or death was recorded with respect to 825 insured persons. Total net contributions paid to MPFs in April amounted to EUR 98.6m (0.6% of net assets at the end of March). At the same time, total payments from all MPFs due to personal account closures reached EUR 9.5m (0.1% of net assets at the end of March), dropping by 19.7% compared to the previous month.

At the end of April 2023, net assets of MPFs amounted to EUR 18.4bn, rising by EUR 164.4m (0.9%) relative to the previous month. Nominal monthly Mirex returns reached 1.0% for category A, 0.4% for category B and 0.3% for category C. Annual Mirex returns reached 4.5% for category A, 0.4% for category B and -1.3% for category C, while annualised[1] returns since the beginning of MPFs’ operation stood at 6.7% for Mirex A, 5.0% for Mirex B and 3.2% for Mirex C[2].

At the end of April, bond investments of MPFs totalled EUR 11.4bn (62.3% of total assets), making their share decrease by 1.8 p.p. on a monthly basis. The share of equity investments in MPFs’ assets decreased by 0.1 p.p. on a monthly basis, amounting to 21.4% of MPFs’ assets (EUR 3.9bn). Investments in domestic shares accounted for 12.5%, while investments in foreign shares accounted for 8.9% of MPFs’ assets. As regards other investment types, investments in investment funds amounted to EUR 2.0bn (11.0% of the assets), making the proportion of these investments in total assets decrease by 0.4 p.p. relative to the previous month. Investments in cash and deposits amounted to 3.8% of the assets, or EUR 704.2m.

THIRD PILLAR PENSION FUNDS

At the end of April 2023, the number of members of 8 open-ended voluntary pension funds (OVPFs) rose by 0.4% on a monthly basis, while the number of members of 21 closed-ended voluntary pension funds (CVPFs) increased by 0.03%, making the number of members of these funds reach 379,625 and 47,679 respectively. Total monthly payments made to voluntary pension funds (VPFs) in April 2023 amounted to EUR 8.1m (0.7% of their net assets at end-March 2022), decreasing by EUR 0.8m compared to the previous month. Total payments made from these funds reached EUR 3.5m, decreasing by EUR 1.4m (27.9%) compared to total payments made from VPFs in the previous month. Total payments from VPFs made due to retirement and other reasons accounted for 71.7%, payments made due to the change of fund reached 19.0%, while those made due to death accounted for 9.3% of total payments in April. With respect to payments made due to retirement, the amount of EUR 1.1m was paid through a pension company (fund), the amount of EUR 0.8m was paid in the form of lump-sum payments, while the amount of EUR 0.6m was transferred for payment to pension insurance companies.

In April 2023, net assets of VPFs rose by EUR 10.7m (1.0% on a monthly basis) and stood at EUR 1.1bn. Monthly nominal returns of VPFs ranged from -1.2% to 0.8%, while returns on an annual basis ranged from -10.0% to 3.1%. As regards the investment structure of VPFs, the largest part of the portfolio was made up of bonds and amounted to a 54.3% share in total net assets, followed by stocks with a 25.2% share and investment funds with a 12.1% share. The share of bonds in VPFs’ investments decreased on the monthly basis by 0.7 p.p., the equity share fell by 0.6 p.p., while the share of investments in investment funds held steady compared to the previous month.

CAPITAL MARKET

In April 2023, the total turnover on the Zagreb Stock Exchange reached EUR 23.7m, decreasing by 15.6% on a monthly basis. Market capitalisation fell by 0.5% relative to the previous month and stood at EUR 37.5bn, of which stocks amounted to EUR 19.6bn, bonds to EUR 17.9bn and ETFs to 9m. As for stock indices, the largest monthly rise was recorded by CROBEXindustrija (8.0%), while CROBEXtransport recorded the largest monthly decrease (2.4%). The main stock index of the ZSE (CROBEX) recorded a monthly fall (-0.3%), while CROBEX10 recorded a 0.6% monthly rise. CROBIS bond index grew by 0.3% on a monthly basis, while CROBIStr also recorded a monthly rise, by 0.5%. SPAN d.d. was again the stock most traded in April, with its turnover amounting to EUR 4.2m (23.2% of the overall stock trade in April) and a 13.0% monthly price increase.

INVESTMENT FIRMS

At the end of the first quarter of 2023, there were 23 legal entities authorised to provide investment services, namely 5 investment firms, 12 credit institutions and 6 investment fund management companies. The first quarter of 2023 saw a quarterly increase of the value of assets managed by all the three groups of authorised legal persons, namely those managed by investment firms (16.8%), investment fund management companies (2.4%) and credit institutions (1.3%^[3]). Assets under the custody of credit institutions grew by 15.4% compared to the previous quarter, while assets under the custody of investment firms increased by 13.5%. The first quarter of 2023 saw the distribution of the value of financial instruments totalling EUR 304.8m (an increase of 55.4% compared to the previous quarter), 81.7% of which was accounted for by units of domestic UCITS, while 10.9% was made up of units of foreign UCITS.

INVESTMENT FUNDS

In April 2023, there were 103 UCITS operating on the market, three more than in the previous month. Their total net assets amounted to EUR 1.98bn at the end of the month, decreasing by EUR 34.0m or 1.7% compared to the previous month. Total monthly net payments of all UCITS were positive and reached EUR 17.8m. Negative monthly net payments were recorded by bond funds (EUR -39.0m), balanced funds (EUR -4.3m) and feeder funds (EUR -1.6m). Positive monthly net payments were recorded by equity funds (EUR 1.2m) and funds categorised as “other” (EUR 61.6m). Bond funds’ net assets accounted for 44.1% of UCITS total net assets at the end of April, while equity and balanced funds accounted for 15.0% and 14.2% of UCITS total net assets respectively. In April 2023, positive asset-weighted average monthly returns were generated by equity (1.7%), balanced (1.7%) and other UCITS (0.3%), while negative returns were recorded by bond (-0.2%) and feeder (-0.3%) UCITS.

The assets of the Fund for Croatian Homeland War Veterans and Members of their Families amounted to EUR 135.8m (a monthly decrease of 0.1%), with the monthly return of the fund reaching 0.2%.

LEASING COMPANIES

At the end of the first quarter of 2023, the total assets of 15 leasing companies stood at EUR 3.1bn, an increase of 13.0% on an annual basis. Pre-tax profit recorded by leasing companies rose by EUR 0.3m (1.6%) compared to the same period last year, amounting to EUR 17.4m. The outstanding contract value of active contracts recorded an 8.5% annual increase in the operating lease segment, while its annual increase in the finance lease segment reached 15.4%. The value of newly concluded contracts in the operating lease segment rose by 33.9% relative to the same period last year, while this growth in the finance lease segment amounted to HRK 29.1%. This was mostly due to an increase in the value of contracts involving passenger cars (EUR 200.1m), commercial vehicles (EUR 76.5m) and plant, machinery and equipment (EUR 28.6m) as leased assets. The total value of newly concluded contracts in the first quarter of 2023 increased by 88.5 (29.8%) on an annual basis.

The full report is available at Publications/Monthly reports