Pensions & Investments gathered information for this report, published annually since 1974, in three steps.
Questionnaires were sent to more than 1,300 fund sponsors in P&I's database. The largest 1,000 were identified from completed questionnaires, follow-up phone calls and emails, and database searches.
Data for sponsoring entities that did not respond were culled from published annual or quarterly reports and Form 5500s filed with the Department of Labor.
P&I's survey generally covers the 12 months ended Sept. 30, 2021. In cases where no information was available from the fund, or the data were older than June 30, 2021, P&I, along with its partner Cognition Solutions, calculated estimates to Sept. 30.
There are a few new questions this year to reflect emerging trends and areas of interest. Cryptocurrency and digital assets were added as an alternative investment category, although no retirement plans reported having those types of investments. Also, a breakdown of how much equity and fixed-income assets are managed in China was added, as well as the number of investment staff at each plan sponsor.
The report also builds on data introduced in recent years around ESG investing and asset owners' policies and investments with managers owned by women, minorities, the disabled and veterans.
Dollar amounts generally are rounded to the nearest million; in certain tables and charts, they are rounded to billions. The aggregate asset mixes represent the weighted averages of all reported allocations for the respective funds.
All data in this special report are ©2022 Crain Communications Inc. Reproduction without permission is prohibited.
