Denmark
Caroline Liinanki

Lærernes Pension, the DKr26bn (€3.5bn) Danish teachers’ pension fund, will increase its already significant investment in forestry by 50 per cent. The fund is also considering investing in forestry in eastern Europe.

Finland
Caroline Liinanki

Following recent market instability, Varma, the €28.7bn Finnish pension company, has significantly increased its bond holdings at the expense of equities and restructured its hedge fund portfolio. The fund has also made its first investments in commodities.

Spencer Anderson

Half of Nordic pension funds intend to increase their allocation to equities over the next six months, according to an nrpn survey.

Chris Newlands

Nordic investors care little about cost reduction and improving client service when it comes to their middle and back office operations and more about reducing operational risk, according to the findings of a Bank of New York Mellon white paper.

Jussi Laitinen, chief investment officer at Finnish pension insurance company Ilmarinen, is to leave the firm in April to become chief executive officer at Aktia Savings Bank.

The Central Bank of Iceland has given no indication it will cut interest rates in the spring, despite industry calls for a reduction.

On February 14, the bank voted to keep interest rates at 13.75 per cent, one of the highest in Europe.

Iceland’s €300m Engineers’ Pension Fund has said it will increase its exposure to alternatives in an effort to fight recent market volatility.

Optimism for future world growth prospects has weakened significantly over the last six months.

Iceland’s €1bn Stapi pension fund has increased its exposure to fixed income and absolute return strategies, at the expense of its equity portfolio.

Aberdeen Property Investors has put French offices and industrial property, and Swedish retail premises, at the top of its total return forecasts for 2007.

Credit Suisse is getting serious about the Nordic markets with the appointment of a specialist targeting the Nordic institutional markets, though it has stopped short of opening an office in the region.

Nordic pension and insurance funds are the most nervous they have ever been about world growth prospects, according to nrpn’s latest quarterly investor survey.

Mercer Human Resource consulting has set up a pan-European one-stop shop for companies anxious to avoid locking up money in over-financed pension funds.

Switzerland is the top ranked country when it comes to environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors while China, Pakistan and Qatar make up the tail end, according to Ethical Investment Research Services (EIRIS).

Ilmarinen, the E23bn Finnish mutual pension insurance company, is considering increasing its exposure to hedge funds this year.

The outcome of the manager selection process for the new Swedish ITP scheme – the pension plan for Swedish white-collar employees – has been slammed by Söderberg and Partners, one of two consultants to advise on the tendering process, for offering too little investment choice and falsifying costs.

Finansinspektionen (FI), the Swedish financial supervisory authority, has launched a new version of the traffic-light model to include insurance risks – a move that could impact on company calculations of the life expectancy.

Neptune, the specialist UK equities manager, has picked up three multi-manager mandates in the Nordic region and is in talks to announce further mandate wins in the region.

ATP, the €51bn Danish labour market pension fund, is looking to add portable alpha strategies within its dedicated alpha portfolio.

UBS Global Asset Management has appointed Henrik Af Donner to the new role of director for Nordic markets in its Stockholm office.

The trend for alpha-beta separation in Nordic institutional portfolios is placing pressure on back office systems, delegates at a conference for Nordic investors hosted by Nordea and the Bank of New York (BNY) last month were told.

Northern Trust has won a mandate to provide custody services to Oslo Pensjonsforsikring’s global fixed income portfolio.

Veritas, the €1.57bn Finnish pension insurance company, is to expand its alternatives portfolio, start investing in indirect property funds and take additional exposure to equities.

Etera, the €5.6bn Finnish mutual pension insurance company, is in the process of rewriting its investment guidelines so that it can invest more tactically and overweight and underweight certain asset classes more freely.

Länsförsäkringar, the €12.4bn Swedish pension insurance company, is to expand its alternatives portfolio from 7 per cent to 20 per cent of total assets over the next four years.

More than two-thirds of leading Nordic investors polled in the latest nrpn quarterly survey intend to increase their exposure to equities over the next six months, and more than three-quarters plan to cut into their fixed income allocations going forward.

Hewitt Associates is to merge with Löneanalyser, one of Sweden’s leading compensation consultancies, to form Hewitt Löneanalyser.

After years of union negotiations and long delays, investment providers can at last bid for the assets of a new occupational pension plan in Sweden. In the future, contributions are expected to grow by SKr26bn (€2.8bn) per year.

Finansinspektionen (FI), the Swedish financial supervisory authority, has not ruled out naming and shaming those life and pension funds that trigger a red light situation under its recently launched traffic light supervisory system.

The Swedish operation of Storebrand Life has appointed Anders Bäckström as its temporary managing director. Mr Bäckström joined Storebrand in November 2005 from Danica Fondförsäkring, where he was market director since 1999. He was also one of the founders of the firm.

Kaupthing Asset Management in Finland has appointed Ari Korhonen as its new director. Mr Korhonen joins the firm on 1 August from the €5.58bn Etera Mutual Pension Insurance company.

Pension Fennia, the €5.3bn Finnish mutual pension insurance company, is expanding its alternatives portfolio from 5 per cent to 20 per cent of all holdings over the next five years.

Nordic pension and insurance funds plan to increase their exposure to equities despite current equity market falls, according to nrpn’s latest quarterly investor survey.

Ilmarinen, the €21bn Finnish mutual pension insurance company, is increasing its exposure to foreign property from 5 per cent to 25 per cent of the property portfolio over the coming four years. Jussi Laitinen, CIO of the fund, told nrpn that Ilmarinen had decided to expand its foreign property holdings in order to further diversify its portfolio.

The European Court of Justice has published an initial opinion on a case the European Commission (EC) brought against Denmark for infringing a number of EC Treaty articles that refer to the principles of the single market.

Keva, the €20bn Finnish Local Government Pension Fund, has decided to change its investment strategy radically in the next three years. The new strategy includes increasing exposure to equities, alternatives and property. The fund will also make its first foray into commodities, reduce its exposure to fixed income and increase its equity exposure from 45 to 50 per cent.

KLP, the NKr159.1bn (€20.49bn) Norwegian public sector pension insurance company, has appointed Sverre Thornes as executive vice president and head of pensions and life insurance. Mr Thornes joined KLP’s fixed income team in 1995. He was appointed as the chief executive officer of the firm’s asset management subsidiary in January 2002.

The recent market wobble in commodities has not deterred many investors from entering the asset class as they seek the diversification and added-value it offers over the long term. However, some Nordic investors remain unconvinced. Chris Newlands reports

In a further bid to enhance Mellon Financial Corporation’s competitiveness, the Pittsburgh-headquartered organisation has finalised a review of its asset servicing businesses designed to improve “alignment” and create synergies with their asset management operations.

JPMorgan has broken into the Nordic custody market with the launch of GlobeClear, its clearance and settlement offering for on-exchange trades. The house says that a Nordic broker-dealer has already signed up to the platform via a tri-party arrangement with sub-custodian, SEB.

Norway’s new tjenestepensjon legislation and low interest rates have prompted several local pension funds to change their schemes from defined benefit to defined contribution.

Vital, the E25.4bn Norwegian pension and life insurance company is expanding its emerging market equity portfolio from 3 to 5 per cent of its total equity exposure. Equities currently form 23.3 per cent of the fund’s total investment portfolio.

Nordic pension and life insurance funds investors have little or no interest in the field of SRI, according to the results of nrpn’s latest quarterly investment survey.

ATP, the €48.94bn Danish Labour Market Supplementary Pension Scheme, is tendering for a new global custodian.

The €8.2bn Finnish State Pension Fund (VER) is to invest approximately 10 per cent of its portfolio in alternative asset classes over the coming four to five years. At present, the fund’s portfolio is divided between bonds (60 per cent) and equities (40 per cent). VER has also minor holdings in hedge funds and private equity.

Wassum is in the middle of producing an overall evaluation of the AP funds, which will look at and evaluate the funds’ investment strategies, as well as decisions made by the board and the operative management of the funds.

Sampension has awarded a DKr1bn Danish equities mandate to Nordea and Loenmodtagernes Dyrtidsfond. The mandate has been split in two with both houses sharing a equal slice (DKr500m) of the equity brief.

The Norwegian market is braced for a flurry of regulatory activity in 2006, beginning with the introduction of obligatorisk tjenestepensjon (OTP), which will require private sector employers to offer their workers a group pension plan from January.

Several Norwegian municipalities have moved their group pensions schemes to Storebrand ahead of the obligatory tjenestepensjon (OTP) reform, which requires all Norwegian private sector employers to offer their employees group pension plans from January 2006.

Pædagogernes Pensionskasse (PBU), the €3.5bn Danish pension fund for early childhood teachers, is in the process of expanding its private equity (PE) portfolio and increasing its exposure to foreign equities.

Nordic pension and life insurance funds plan to increase their exposure to private equity and reduce their fixed income holdings, according to the results of nrpn’s second quarterly investment survey.

Denmark’s BankInvest, which runs more than €10bn of total assets, is to launch an emerging markets SRI fund in March next year.

Sampo Life, part of Finland’s Sampo group, is expanding its operations into Norway.

Evli, the Finnish investment bank, has launched a total return long-term fixed income fund. Evli Target Bond invests in government and corporate bonds, emerging market debt, money market and other fixed income instruments.

AP 7, the SKr57bn (€6bn) Seventh Swedish pension fund, and ATP, the €47.8bn Danish Labour Market Supplementary Pension Scheme have introduced an alpha-beta separation in their internal equity mandates.

The Icelandic government has unveiled plans to work with the Confederation of Labour (ASÍ) and the Confederation of Icelandic Employers (SA) to reduce the growing burden of disability pension payments on pension funds.

AP 2, Sweden’s SEK173bn (€18.3bn) second national pension fund, has poached Eva Halvarsson from the Swedish Ministry of Industry, Employment and Communications to become its chief executive officer.