Pension plans in Spain. Profitability analysis

Abstract

This article analyses Spanish pension plans, which have had growing trend over the last years. They are considereda complement to the public pensions offered by the social security system, and many companies, especially largeones, set up pension plans for their employees as a measure of corporate social responsibility. The aim of thispaper is to describe the pension plan system in Spain and analyze its profitability. For this purpose, the study hasfocused on the plans offered by financial institutions listed on the IBEX35 in 2022 since they are the most importantand, as they have similar characteristics, we avoid comparative bias. The study covers the 5-year period from 2017to 2021 and analyses the pension plan profitability from different points of view: according to the category of theplan, the management entity and the analysis of the average profitability of each category of the different entities.The results show that equities, mixed equities and mixed fixed income plans, in this order, are the most numerous.They are also the ones that have generated the highest profitability in recent years, in general terms. However,guaranteed income plans are the most stable over time. Moreover, it is observed that results are similar in thedifferent management companies analyzed.