Sweden’s big-four national pensions buffer funds are feeling the heat over their joint, failed investment in Northvolt – the ambitious Swedish battery firm forced into bankruptcy in the Nordic country in March.
Chief executive officers of Stockholm-based AP1, AP3 and AP4, as well as Gothenburg-based AP2’s CEO, appeared in front of the parliamentary Finance Committee last week to answer questions, particularly about the structure of the joint venture they set up to hold the SEK5.8bn (€532m) equity investment.
It appears the committee’s chair remains doubtful, however, and intends to take things further for the funds, which back the income pension – the main component of the state pension.
On the premium pension side of Swedish state pension provision, the all-party Pensions Group has agreed to a government-commissioned investigation into how the system’s disbursement phase can be improved, mulling reforms which could involve passing the Swedish Pensions Agency’s role in this to a different body.
Separately, the agency itself has come out with analysis showing that premium pension funds provided by private managers have on average, over the years, left pension savers worse off than if their money had been put in the default option run by national pension fund AP7.
Meanwhile, the Swedish Fund Selection Agency continues working through its long to-do list of procurements aimed at reforming the premium pension system’s funds marketplace, most recently launching a SEK46bn tender for actively-managed Swedish and European small-cap funds.
In Norway, the new expert council to advise the government on managing the Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG) is taking shape, with Karen Helene Ulltveit-Moe, professor of economics at the University of Oslo, having been appointed as chair of the three-member panel.
The experts are to tackle the question of active management by the index-near fund, among other things, the government has revealed.
Reflecting falling equity prices earlier this year, the GPFG’s manager NBIM reported a 0.6% investment loss for the first quarter – but did manage to beat the benchmark by 0.16 percentage points.
In Finland, Ilmarinen is facing the loss within the next six months of its president and CEO, with Jouko Pölönen having been poached by Finnish finance group eQ.
Items to note:
- How the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund is run has become a television series in Norway – available to stream domestically only from the website of national broadcaster NRK.
- IPE is hosting a one-day forum on 8 October for Iceland’s investment decision makers, asset managers, European pension funds and others. The IPE Iceland event will take place at Reykjavik’s Harpa Concert Hall and Conference Centre.
Rachel Fixsen
Nordic Correspondent
This news briefing was published earlier in the week. If you would like to receive it regularly, on your ‘IPE profile’, go to ‘My Newsletters‘ and select any from the list.
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