ITTIGEN (NNA) – A Swiss anthroposophical pension fund has once again out-performed the competition to achieve the highest returns on its investments over an extended period.

While the returns of other pension funds have been fluctuating wildly between negative and positive results in recent years, the comparison table published by the SonntagsZeitung newspaper shows that CoOpera achieved a steady result of between 2.6 percent and 3.4 percent in the last four years. On a ten year comparison, CoOpera achieved an annual return of 3.34 percent.

The investment policy of the fund particularly showed its worth in 2008, a year in which, according to the then comparison, Swiss pension funds achieved “by far the worst investment result” with -13.5 percent since the introduction of new pension regulations in 1985. CoOpera was able to show a positive result of +2.8 percent.

As NNA reported at the time, the reason for the good performance of the anthroposophical pension fund was seen in its decision not to invest in shares. Instead of in the stock market, CoOpera had invested its funds of about 300 million Swiss francs in cultural institutions, businesses and housing with a sustainable background. “CoOpera’s investment strategy, which largely ignores shares, last year turned out to be the correct one,” the performance comparison noted.

Now, after a year when it dropped to second place, the pension fund has done it again and has come out on top of the comparison table.

The pension fund also does well with regard to per capita administrative costs, coming fourth out of twenty.

Commenting on the result on its website, CoOpera said it had not deliberately entered a race to achieve the highest ranking, but that the result was probably the logical consequence of its sustainability-focused approach. Its perspective included both the pensioners and those who worked with CoOpera’s financial resources.

“We are pleased that this prudent attitude has been recognised,” the pension fund said.

END/nna/cva

Item: 110720-02EN Date: 20 July 2011

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