Pension funds rediscover billions in wealth

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THE Insurance and Pensions Commission (Ipec) says the book value of pension funds’ asset base doubled in real terms during the 12 months to June 30, 2021, after refinements to valuation models, which had been wrecked by Zimbabwe’s currency changes in 2019.

In June 2019, the southern African country reintroduced its own currency after a decade during which it used a basket of foreign units.
This change was accompanied by a statute that dictated conversion of all balances to ZWL$ at a rate of 1:1 against the US$, which created challenges when the domestic unit devalued against major currencies on an official market that was introduced immediately after.