September 2020

11Sep

One of Sweden’s Biggest Investors Starts ESG Pressure Campaign

Alecta, a Swedish pension fund with about $110 billion under management, wants to take active investing to a new level to force the companies it owns to be more ethical. Carina Silberg, who runs a newly merged corporate governance and sustainability unit at Alecta, says her team is bringing in reams of data to figure out exactly what portfolio companies are doing when it comes to environmental, social and governance standards. If “large gaps” are identified, “targeted action” follows, she...

September 11, 2020
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May 2020
07May

Swedish pension giant joins risk transfer market

Alecta, a Swedish pension fund manager, has announced it will be working alongside Dutch healthcare pension fund PGGM in the risk transfer market, taking 30% of deals PGGM invests in. PGGM is the largest single investor in significant risk transfer deals, growing a €5bn book which references €70bn of portfolios, and advocating to regulators and others for the benefits of the market.It is one of the only pension funds regularly active as a direct investor in... Read More @Global Capital

May 7, 2020
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07May

Swedish pension giant joins risk transfer market

Alecta, a Swedish pension fund manager, has announced it will be working alongside Dutch healthcare pension fund PGGM in the risk transfer market, taking 30% of deals PGGM invests in. PGGM is the largest single investor in significant risk transfer deals, growing a €5bn book which references €70bn of portfolios, and advocating to regulators and others for the benefits of the market.It is one of the only pension funds regularly active as a direct investor in... Read More @Global Capital

May 7, 2020
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March 2020

31Mar

Swedish pension giant splits investment efforts and names new leaders

Swedish pension giant AP7 has restructured its investment team to split it into three new units, the Stockholm-based group has announced. A spokesperson for the institutional investor, which has $50bn (SEK 525bn) in assets under management, confirmed to Citywire Selector that its investment capabilities are now split as follows: risk management and asset allocation; alternative investments; and, fixed income and forex segments. According to AP7’s chief investment officer, Ingrid Albinsson, the split was implemented to strengthen the capabilities of...

March 31, 2020
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25Mar

Swedish Pension AP1 Divests From Fossil Fuels

Swedish pension fund AP1 said it will no longer invest in fossil fuel companies. The SEK365.8 billion ($35.8 billion) fund said the transition to a low-carbon economy represents a significant amount of uncertainty for companies involved in coal, oil, and natural gas activities and that “continued investments related to these activities can increase the financial risk exposure of the fund.” The fund said the move is a result of its work to identify and analyze climate-related financial risks in...

March 25, 2020
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13Mar

​Swedish Pensions Agency sees need for new pension savings scheme

The Swedish Pensions Agency (Pensionsmyndigheten) says it sees a need for a new type of private pension savings scheme, as some sections of the population should be putting more money away for retirement. In a report investigating this proposal, the authority said while the financial need for increased savings seemed to be low for most people in Sweden, there were nevertheless groups that needed to save more for their pensions. The agency said in a statement: “A private pension savings...

March 13, 2020
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January 2019

24Jan

Another Swedish Pension Fund Makes Huge ESG-Focused Divestment

Selling of nukes, tobacco, coal and oil sands holdings follows new law, plus actions of sister fund. Closely following its sister fund, in accordance with new legislation, Swedish pension fund AP1 has divested from several environmentally harmful categories. The $1 billion AP1, one of four pension funds that manage the retirement assets of the nation, said it has removed allocations to nuclear weapons, tobacco, coal, and oil sand companies from its investment portfolio “since the beginning of the year.”...

January 24, 2019
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October 2018

22Oct

Who Feels the Nudge? Knowledge, Self-Awareness and Retirement Savings Decisions

By Anders Anderson (Swedish House of Finance) & David T. Robinson (Fuqua School of Business, Duke University; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)) Using a financial literacy survey of Swedish pension investors matched to actual retirement savings decisions, we argue that respondents can be broken into three groups: those who are financially literate, those who mistakenly believe they are financially literate, and those who know that they are not. We examine how these groups respond differently to informational nudges encouraging...

October 22, 2018
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03Oct

Swedish national pension fund to measure sustainability through Arabesque S-Ray

Arabesque today announced an agreement to provide the Swedish national pension fund Första AP-fonden (AP1) with ESG data through its proprietary technology Arabesque S-Ray®. As part of the new partnership, AP1 and Arabesque will also collaborate on developing a unique score for S-Ray® that quantifies the performance of companies based on the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP Score). Arabesque S-Ray® is an algorithm-based tool that analyses the sustainability performance of approximately 7,000 of the world’s largest listed...

October 3, 2018
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July 2017

07Jul

Sweden Opens $155 Billion in Pension Cash to Greater Risks

Sweden’s $155 billion AP pension system was given the go ahead to cut its bond holdings and invest more in private equity in a bid to boost returns and safeguard retirement funds. The new rules for AP1, AP2, AP3 and AP4 will require the funds to hold 20 percent of their assets in the safest bonds, down from 30 percent, the Finance Ministry said in a statement Friday. The proposal also does away with a 5 percent limit for non-listed...

July 7, 2017
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