YEREVAN, March 23. /ARKA/. The total assets of Armenia’s pension funds managed by two companies stand  now at 35.5 billion drams, and the annual yield is 7%, Karen Hakobyan, the head of securities regulation division of the Central Bank’s financial system regulation department , said today at a discussion devoted to the funded pension system.

According to him, about half of the total assets -about 16.5 billion drams- were contributed  by employees and as much by the government, while the remaining 2.5 billion drams were generated as income.

Hakobyan said the pension funds have 140 thousand registered members, of whom  about 70 thousand are  public sector employees, and about 70 thousand are from the private sector. He said about 3-4 thousand new members join the system monthly.

Hakobyan said the assets are invested in bank deposits, stocks, government and corporate bonds,  mortgage bonds in drams and in various major international companies’ shares - such as Apple, Google, Microsoft, Nestle, Nissan, Toyota, Sony and Coca-Cola.

He added that 66% of the assets are in Armenian drams , 25% in US dollars and 9% in euros.
Armenian pensions funds are managed by AMUNDI-ACBA ASSET MANAGEMENT CISC and C-QUADRAT AMPEGA ASSET MANAGEMENT LLC.

AMUNDI ASSET MANAGEMENT, one of two founders of AMUNDI-ACBA ASSET MANAGEMENT, holds 51% of the company’s shares, and 49% belong to ACBA-CREDIT AGRICOLE BANK, the other founder. AMUNDI ASSET MANAGEMENT has offices in 30 countries and more than 100 million clients. Its assets total about $1 trillion.

C-QUADRAT AMPEGA ASSET MANAGEMENT is a joint company of С- QUADRAT Investment AG (Austria) – 74.9% and Talanx Asset Management GmbH (Germany) – 25.1%. It runs assets of $6 billion in 17.

Talanx Asset Management GmbH is a member of Talanx Group, the third biggest insurance corporation in Germany.

Talanx started functioning more than one century ago. It is running assets exceeding $180 billion in 150 countries.

The funded pension system requires that all Armenian citizens born after 1973 pay social security taxes equivalent to 5 percent of their monthly wages, which is matched and doubled by the government. That money has to be deposited with private pension funds licensed by the government. ($1 – 480.84 drams).–0–