Our cover feature in this edition (pages 23 to 25) examines investors’ increasing interest in alpha-beta separation with in depth interviews and profiles with AP 7, which started applying the strategy internally last November, ATP and the NKr1400bn Norwegian Petroleum fund.

AP 7’s Christian Ragnartz is also a guest at our roundtable discussion on SRI, which takes a particular slant on shareholder engagement and appears on pages 31 to 38. Joined by AP 1, AP 4, consultants GES and Ethix, F&C and Alf Guldberg – head of the Swedish Association of Institutes for retirement Provision – the discussion looks at how far SRI has developed in Sweden and the rest of Europe, whether performance issues continue to hold the SRI market back, and whether or not engagement has become a real alternative to the basic exclusion of ‘sin’ stocks.

The results of our latest quarterly investment survey (pages 14 to 15), however, would suggest the market has some way to go. According to the results, investors in the Nordic region have little interest in the field of SRI. Indeed, not one of 12 polled investors – representing some €24.6bn of assets under management – said that it intends to gain any exposure to socially responsible investments over the next six months, while only one respondent said that it already has some kind of SRI allocation.

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