Research from The WM Company, the performance measurement consultancy owned by Deutsche Bank, shows that in 2001 actively managed pension funds outperformed index funds in most of the major markets.
The study was based on the WM All Funds Universe composed of 1009 UK pension funds with equity holdings of 291 billion (at 31 December 2001).
Alastair MacDougall, head of Research at WM commented: “Our study examined the performance of UK pension funds and shows that 2001 was a good year for active investors in aggregate who managed to outperform the indices in the UK, US, Europe (ex UK) and Japan. Their relative performance was superior to index funds, but everyone suffered from the bear market in equities. Long-term figures continue to show that, on average, passive managers perform better.”
The study ” A comparison of active and passive management” builds on previous research work and includes ten years of data for the UK market.