New analysis of the country's largest private-sector pensions shows sponsors' investment strategies are diverging like never before. Russell Investments has published a new review of how pension assets are managed among the 20 sponsors in the “$20 billion” club, a group coined by Russell in 2011 in an effort to track trends among the largest pensions.

Bob Collie, chief research strategist at Russell, writes that while uniformity in investment strategy persists among individual retirement savers, non-profits and public pensions, the largest defined-benefit sponsors are showing signs of more individualized approaches.

Much of the new trend is explained by the divergence in return-seeking and liability-driven strategies, says Collie. He compares Ford Motor Co.'s U.S. pension plans, which have 77% of their assets invested in fixed income and just 7% invested in equity, with Johnson & Johnson's worldwide plans, which are invested 79% in equities and just 21% in fixed income.