The market value of Canadian employer-sponsored pension funds totalled $1.6 trillion at the end of the second quarter, Statistics Canada announced Wednesday.
This was down 1.0% from the first quarter, which represents the first decline in pension assets since the second quarter of 2013, according to a report from national statistics agency.
Stock holdings of pension funds fell 1.5% in the second quarter, and the value of their bond holdings declined by 2.1%, the StatsCan report says. Conversely, investments in real estate assets grew by 0.9% during the quarter.
Pension fund revenues fell 6.7% to $44.4 billion in the second quarter, whereas expenditures rose 15.7%, which resulted in a 21.4% decline in net income to $22.5 billion. The drop in revenues was largely due to a 23.9% decrease in profits from the sale of securities, the StatsCan report notes.