The end-June annual yield rates of the Bulgarian pension funds fell sharply in comparison with the end of the first quarter of 2008, estimates based on data covering the past two years showed.

The universal pension funds posted the highest yield rates with the voluntary supplementary funds as the worst performers.

The voluntary schemes enjoy the least investment restrictions among the pension funds and are heavily exposed to the floundering equity markets. Even the voluntary fund with the highest yield performance, CCB Sila, could do no better than 6.5 per cent.

The stricter set of investment rules that the universal and occupational pension funds have to comply with has pared their losses from the ongoing financial crisis. They are predominantly invested in debt and fixed-yield securities.

The local pension funds recorded yields of 2.8 per cent to 8.3 per cent after doing as well as 6 per cent across-the-board by the end of March. In 2007, end-September and end-December yields in the 10 to 15 per cent range were no uncommon.

Lukoil Garant Bulgaria and CCB Sila posted the highest yield rates among the universal schemes. The arithmetic average yield of this segment was reported at 5.62 per cent.

The top performers among the occupational funds were CCB Sila and Saglasie. This segment returned 4.86 per cent on arithmetic average.

The arithmetic average yield of the voluntary segment is 4.55 per cent.

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