The Swiss Federal Pension Fund (PUBLICA) returned 6.6 per cent on its investments in 2025, driven by the strong performances of equities and gold.

The public sector pension fund’s open pension schemes returned 6.7 per cent, while its closed pension scheme returned 4.2 per cent.

Measured against the UBS pension fund index, PUBLICA’s portfolio outperformed other pension funds by 0.8 percentage points.

At the end of 2025, its consolidated funded ratio across all open pension schemes was 107.8 per cent.

Equities had the greatest positive impact on PUBLICA’s investment performance last year, with an annual return of 13.5 per cent, contributing 4.1 percentage points to the overall performance.

Swiss and emerging markets equities performed strongest, with returns of 18.5 per cent and 15.75 per cent respectively, while North American equities returned just 5.1 per cent.

Meanwhile, the surge in gold prices meant the precious metal made a ‘disproportionately large’ contribution to the positive overall result, accounting for 1.6 percentage points.

Real estate accounted for 0.4 percentage points of the overall return, with Swiss real estate making a positive return while foreign real estate made a negative return.

Fixed income contributed 0.5 per cent of the performance total, with Swiss bonds returning 0.05 per cent and other bonds returning 0.84 per cent.

One significant factor was the US dollar’s 13 per cent depreciation against the Swiss France, which PUBLICA said it was able to mostly absorb thanks to its currency hedging strategy.

“In 2022, PUBLICA added a new asset class: private infrastructure equities, with a target allocation of 3 per cent,” the pension fund noted.

“This is being built up partly via three globally diversified infrastructure funds, and partly in close collaboration with other pension funds.

“To this end, PUBLICA has entered into a partnership with three other Swiss pension funds, under which it invests directly in high-value infrastructure facilities together with the Dutch pension fund asset manager APG.

“PUBLICA directly holds a portfolio of real estate in Switzerland, which it expanded in 2025. At the end of the year, the portfolio’s gross market value exceeded CHF 4bn for the first time.

“PUBLICA’s properties are managed by outside companies. From 1 January 2027, it will streamline these activities by focusing them on one firm as opposed to six at present.

“The new partner, Wincasa, operates throughout Switzerland and was chosen in a multi-stage selection process.”

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