The pension assets of companies within Germany’s DAX 40 increased by €5bn last year, new research from Mercer has suggested.

The research showed that pension assets within the DAX 40 increased from €258bn to €263bn in 2024. Meanwhile, Mercer said that the value of pensions obligations within those DAX companies fell from €324bn to €319bn over the same period.

Mercer Germany head of pension funding consulting, Dr. André Geilenkothen, said: “The increase in the funding ratio is evidence of the continuing trend towards the financing of pension obligations.

"This not only reduces balance sheet risks and manages liquidity outflows, but in the case of the pension fund, it also reduces the costs of statutory insolvency insurance.”

However, Mercer said that pension assets within the DAX 40 were still far below the 2021 peak of almost €300bn.

The firm also said that the composition of the DAX 40 shifted last year with the departure of manufacturing firm Covestro and its replacement by Fresenius Medical Care.

These, Mercer wrote, reduced pension assets by €3bn within the index.

The firm also said that pension assets fell by €10bn because of the outflow of funds that totalled €7bn in 2025.

Mercer added in its insight: “The biggest uncertainty factor for the development of pension obligations is usually the actuarial interest rate, which, however, remained stable last year.

"In the case of the Mercer Yield Curve, Mercer's method for determining the actuarial interest rate according to IFRS, the actuarial interest rate for a typical average remaining term of 15 (or 20) years changed only slightly from 3.57 per cent (or 3.63 per cent) to 3.56 per cent (or 3.65 per cent).”

It added: “The calculation methods of other appraisal firms or auditing firms have tended to result in an increase in the actuarial interest rate.

"Depending on the procedure used, the composition of the population, the specific commitments and other factors, all constellations are represented: Some companies have raised or left the interest rate unchanged, others have lowered it.”

Perhaps most intriguing was the fact that the funding ratio for schemes on the DAX 40 reached a high of 82 per cent in 2024, up from 80 per cent at the end of 2022 and 2023.

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