| dc.description.abstract | The primary role of pension funds in the country Kenya is to ensure that staffs both in
public and private corporations have a form of income regular or lump sum on
retirement. Recently most of the pension funds prefer the pensions system that
guarantees a regular income for life to the pensioners. This has been informed by the
poor saving culture of Kenyans. Retirement Benefits Authority (RBA) regulates all
pension funds in Kenya. Lately there has been a concern on the financial performance
of pension funds in Kenya holding assets worth 548.8 billion as at June 2013. With
the recent NSSF Act 2013 in place the portfolio will get into trillions. Where there are
doubts on the financial performance of a particular pension fund, RBA recommends
adoption of an annuity through an insurance company or any other financial provider
approved by the Insurance Regulatory Authority (IRA) and the Central Bank of
Kenya. Majority of pension funds in Kenya invest in the Nairobi Stock Exchange
(NSE) except for investments in property, offshore, unquoted equity and cash and
cash equivalents. The study will evaluate the financial performance of the portfolio
holdings of these pension funds. Using a sample of 35 pension funds, the study
established that equities performed better than all other asset classes over a period of 1
year and 3 years. The performance was however poor over a 3 month period. Equities
performed better in large funds compared to medium and small funds. Offshore
performance was the least especially for medium pension funds. The performance of
all funds was better over 3 year period than 3 month and 1 year period. The majority
recommendations proposed to address the level of financial management knowledge
to the trustees of the various pension fund boards, lobbying for the government to
reduce the tax burden to the pensioners and increased member education | en_US |
