Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund had billions of dollars in short-term U.S. Treasury debt when the pandemic hit early this year, leaving it with a pile of money to reinvest as the global recession dragged on.
GPIF, as the world’s biggest pension fund is known, boosted its Treasuries holdings to almost 50% of its foreign bond portfolio in the year through March 31, with almost 40% of that amount concentrated in maturities of three years or less, a surprisingly high number for an institution that has to match long-term liabilities.
These figures come from a Bloomberg analysis of the more than 8,000 foreign debt securities that were divulged when GPIF, which manages 150 trillion yen ($1.4 trillion), provided a detailed breakdown of its portfolio for the first time ever.
