The UK Universities run a pension scheme called, The Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS).
[http://www.uss.co.uk/]. After the BT pension fund, this is the 2nd largest pension fund in the UK.

It has £34 Billion in assets, £34,000,000,000. It is very interesting to see the top 100 holdings.

[http://www.uss.co.uk/UssInvestments/InvestmentsTypes/Equities/Pages/USStop100investments.aspx]

The top 5 investments are

1 HSBC HOLDINGS £466.20m
2 ROYAL DUTCH SHELL £458.80m
3 VODAFONE GROUP £343.70m
4 GLAXOSMITHKLINE £259.40m
5 BP £235.90m

Why ?

These 5 firms are generous dividend payers.

1. HSBC yields 4% = £18,648,000 dividend income for USSC 
2. ROYAL DUTCH SHELL yields 5.1% yield = £23,398,800 dividend income for USSC
3. VODAFONE GROUP yields 5.3%. yield = £18,216,100 dividend income for USSC
4. GLAXOSMITHKLINE yields 4.3% yield = £11,154,200 dividend income for USSC
5. BP yields 4.7% yield = £11,087,300 dividend income for USSC

Good dividends to pay the pensions to the deserving retired academics.

Interesting fact that if you add up the top 5 investments:
∑ (£466,200,000 + £458,800,000 + £343,700,000 + £259,400,000 + £235,900,000)

= £1,764,000,000 (£1.764 Billion)= 5.18% of USSC Assets.