Assets of the 1,000 largest U.S. retirement funds rose 10.79 percent to $8.35 trillion in 2013, according to a Pensions & Investments retirement funds survey.

Defined benefit plan assets increased 8.11 percent to $5.67 trillion and defined contribution assets jumped nearly 17 percent to $2.68 trillion.

Last year marked a milestone in the 30 years P&I has conducted this survey. It pointed out that no corporate retirement plans made it into the top 10 largest defined benefit pension plans last year. General Motors, which was the last large corporation to make it into the top 10, ranked No. 12 in 2013 because it transferred $29 billion to a group annuity at the end of 2012.

Overall, more than 32 percent of the assets in the 1,000 largest plans and 26.5 percent of the top 200 plans were defined contribution plans, the survey found.

The Federal Retirement Thrift Savings Plan, California Public Employees’ Retirement System, California State Teachers’ Retirement System, New York State Common and Florida State Board topped the list of largest overall retirement funds.

The largest corporate plan in the survey was Boeing with nearly $99 billion in assets.

The top 200 plans surveyed held nearly 73 percent of the total assets of the largest 1,000 plans.

The largest union plan was the $35.52 billion Western Conference Teamsters Pension Trust.

“While significant gains in equities helped retirement assets reach an all-time high, defined contribution plans continued to grow at a faster pace,” said Aaron Cunningham, director of research and analytics for Pensions & Investments. “This is highlighted by the growth of the Federal TSP, which in 2008 had roughly the same amount of assets as CalPERS. Now the Federal TSP – a defined contribution plan – has $102 billion more in assets.”

Instant Insights /

Largest retirement funds rose 10.79 percent in 2013

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