The Biologists’ Fund places great emphasis on prudence but less on transparency
Enpab invests 64 per cent in bonds. Lack of information on alternative assets
Key points
A focus on prudence, with transparency still a work in progress. This is the picture that emerges from an analysis of the 2025 final accounts of Enpab, the pension fund for biologists: an independent pension scheme (with 19,920 members) which offers a higher level of detail than that found by ‘Plus24’ in many pension funds, but which nevertheless leaves certain aspects of the portfolio in the shadows, preventing a full understanding of the investment structure and the contribution of each asset class to the overall result.
Investments
As at 31 December 2025, the pension fund’s movable assets stood at 1.13 billion euros. The breakdown provided in the 2025 financial statements on harmonised UCITS and ETFs/ETCs allows for a clear picture of the asset allocation: bonds dominate with 63.8 per cent, followed by equities at 19.7 per cent; the picture is completed by cash and money market instruments (5.6 per cent), property (3.5 per cent), alternative investments (5.2 per cent), ETCs on precious and industrial metals (1.3 per cent) and a residual share of flexible funds (0.8 per cent, the underlying composition of which is not clarified in the financial statements).
The weight of bonds
What is most striking, first and foremost, is the predominance of bonds, which account for almost two-thirds of the total investment portfolio. This choice reflects the typical approach of pension fund investors: to limit volatility and ensure stable cash flows over time. The flip side of the coin is inevitable: when equity markets are on the rise (as has been the case recently), such a heavily fixed-income-biased allocation reaps only a fraction of the benefits.
Hard-to-read alternatives
The ‘Non-harmonised OICR/FIA’ item in the balance sheet remains less transparent, accounting for 8.7 per cent of the portfolio assets. Only after a request for clarification did the pension fund specify to ‘Plus24’ that this figure conceals a property component of 39.95 million (3.53 per cent of assets). As for the remaining portion – 58.2 million, equivalent to 5.2 per cent – there is a lack of detail: private equity, private debt, infrastructure or other alternative strategies remain unknown.
The missing return
The financial statements show a pre-tax rate of return, net of financial expenses, of 3.89 per cent, and a net accounting return on financial investments of 2.66 per cent. However, these are accounting returns on securities management: there is no more immediate figure – the gross market return on invested assets – which would make it easier to compare with other pension funds, which do publish this figure.
