Presenting a combined report on the performances of the four major Croatian mandatory pension funds in 2017 in Parliament, the CEO of AZ pension fund Kristijan Buk said that the pension system had not been put in jeopardy by the crisis at the indebted food and retail group Agrokor.

“Investment diversification and conscientious asset management prevented the problems generated by the Agrokor conglomerate to result in a major drop in the value of the funds’ assets, and they did not have a significant impact on the funds’ returns,” Buk said on behalf of pension funds.

Agrokor’s securities always accounted for only a small portion of the funds’ assets, and they never exceeded 1.5 percent of their total assets, said Buk, adding that they could not in any way have a significant impact on future pensions.

“Exposure to Agrokor today is minimal,” said Buk, stressing that the pension system was not at risk over Agrokor.

At the end of 2017, the four mandatory pension funds had a total of 1.44 million members, and assets managed by them totalled 91.9 billion kuna (€12.5 billion), an increase of 9.2 percent compared to 2016. The total includes 31 billion kuna (€4.2 billion) which the pension funds earned for their clients and transferred to their pension accounts.

The return on the pension funds’ investments in 2017 was 4.5 percent for category A pension funds, 3.0 percent for category B pension funds, and 6.1% percent for category C pension funds. Absolute return for their members was more than 2.7 billion kuna (€366 million), said Buk.

“Croatian pension funds are among the very best in Europe in terms of real returns, and have had a better real average return over the last 10 years than funds in most OECD countries,” said Buk.

(€1 = 7.37 kuna)

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