SSIF assets reach JD9.9b, comprehensive income amounts to JD‎‎379m by end of June‎

AMMAN — The Social Security Investment Fund’s (SSIF) performance throughout the first half of the year has improved with the total assets reaching JD 9.9 billion, compared to JD 9.2 billion at the end of 2017, marking an increase of 7.4 per cent, according to the SSIF Acting Executive Chief Mohammad Odeh.

Meanwhile, the Fund’s comprehensive income, which is composed of the Fund’s income from its investment activities in addition to the revaluation of the strategic shares portfolio, amounted to JD379 million, a SSIF statement said.

The income that represents the return on the various investment instruments in money market instruments, bonds, loans, public equity, real estate, and dividends in addition to the investments in private equity and hospitality sector amounted to JD260.4 million, Odeh stated, adding that the performance of the companies that the Fund invests in also improved and their dividends grew to around JD98 million compared to some JD87.5 million in 2017. 

The SSIF official noted that, as a long term financial investor whose assets constitute around 30 per cent of the GDP in current prices, the Fund  invests in many vital sectors including hospitality and development zones, which led to the creation of more than 3,700 permanent jobs, most of them for local citizens, the statement added. 

On the revaluation of the strategic shares portfolio, Odeh noted that the performance of the Amman Stock Exchange (ASE) has a direct impact on the Fund’s performance, especially as the value of the Fund’s public equity portfolio represents around 11 per cent of the ASE market capitalisation. Therefore, the Fund’s comprehensive income registers an increase when the ASE’s performance is positive and it may incur losses when ASE’s performance declines, according to the statement. 

The comprehensive income registered JD477.7 million as at the end of April 2018 when the ASE market capitalisation grew by 8.3 per cent from the beginning of the year, then declined by JD98.8 million to reach JD379 million as at the end of June 2018 when the ASE market capitalisation grew by 1.4 per cent from the beginning of the year. 

To conclude, Odeh stressed that the Fund, like other pension funds, builds its strategic asset allocation to achieve acceptable returns and risk levels, taking into consideration the parameters of the national economy and the actuarial studies of the Social Security Corporation. 

In light of the ninth actuarial study that will be published by the end of this month, the Fund will revisit its investment policies and its strategic asset allocation to enhance the Fund’s performance and reinforce the Corporation’s solvency to enable it meet its future obligations, the statement concluded.