Welcome to the website of GAC GmbH!
We would like to give you a general picture of the company in the following pages.
While the investment volume of life insurance companies still increased slightly by €6-7 billion (+0.6%) at book value in 2022, it fell by around €275 billion at fair value. Thus, in the environment of rising interest rates, life insurance companies had to report a historically low market value return of around -21%. Direct bond investments regained importance in 2022, but continued to lose volume in absolute terms. While the share quota decreased from six to five percent, real estates (8%) and above all alternatives (9%) were further expanded. The "Zinszusatzreserve" fell for the first time by 3-4 billion euros.
The capital volume of the 46 health insurance companies increased by 13 billion euros to 346 billion euros at book value in 2022. However, while the KVUs were still able to report hidden reserves of almost €50 billion at the end of the previous year, the market values of all investments were more than €20 billion below the book values at the end of 2022. On average, this led to a historically low market value yield of -18%.
The meltdown of the direct bond investments weakened in 2022, with its share still at just under 52%. The total bond share fell below 75%, the share of equities decreased by one seventh to 6%. In contrast, real estate (7%) and alternatives (8%) continued to gain in importance, and their share at market value increased even more significantly.
The investment year 2022 was characterised by highly dispersed investment results both between and within the investor groups. A high bond ratio in conjunction with a long duration had a particularly negative effect, while a significant real estate and alternatives share had a dampening effect. Traditional life insurance policies (KLV) suffered the most. Here, too, the spread is widest, with results ranging from -37.7% to +0.3% (mean -22%). The unit-linked class (FLV) fared better with around -15%. The largest pension fund achieved a market value return of -12%. The Swiss pension funds fared better, especially due to a high real estate quota (22%) and the significant share of alternatives (10%). The spread of results is also significantly smaller for them. The largest investor in the area of Versorgngswerke performed significantly better.
We were able to identify more than 100 pension funds with billions in assets, more than 40 of which manage investments of at least CHF five billion. Around one-third of the assets are invested in bonds. While the equity exposure has fallen below 30% in 2022, the real estate exposure has further expanded to over 22%. Alternatives (mainly private equity, infrastructure and debt) have been expanded to around 10% in recent years. Performance in 2022 was negative at -9% (previous year +8.5%), with a very wide range of results from -15% to -3%.
The rapid rise in interest rates led to a drop in pension obligations for DAX/MDAX companies by more than a quarter to €372 billion in 2022. As plan assets fell by less than a fifth to €292 billion, the funding ratio jumped to just under 79%. Looking only at the investment side, 2022 was weaker than 2008 at the time of the financial crisis, with an average investment return of around -18%. The LDI approach has led to a weak investment performance, but its goal of balancing assets and liabilities and limiting balance sheet volatility has been met. In asset allocation, bonds have lost significant weight while equities remain in the 20-25% corridor. Real estate and alternatives as well as liquidity gained weight.