Welcome to the ninth edition of Nordic Region Pensions & Investments News, Financial Times Business’ dedicated publication for the pension and investment industries in the Nordic countries, which is now two years old.

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.

The €8.3bn Finnish State Pension Fund is to receive a cash injection of almost €1bn from the Finnish government before the end of the year, which it is to use to increase its current 4 per cent exposure to alternatives to 10 per cent over the next two years.

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.

A new socially responsible emerging markets fund offers investors both a carrot and a stick to bring about changes in the governance of emerging market companies.

For the first time in nearly 10 years, the Finnish pensions industry faces a major reform. The liberalisation of investment regulations has been largely welcomed, but concerns remain over last minute tweaks. Reeta Cevik reports.

AP 7, the SKr65bn (€7bn) state pension fund, has joined Mississippi Public Employees’ Retirement System (MPERS) in suing Dell over alleged accounting fraud. AP 7 is believed to face a potential loss of approximately $5m (€3.7m).

A coalition of institutional investors led by the Swedish national buffer fund AP 1, have succeeded in bringing the Marriott hotel chain to the negotiating table to address concerns about its human rights record.

Norway has introduced mandatory occupational pensions, which is fuelling competition within the industry. Prudent person rules and a new solvency regime are also under discussion. Reeta Cevik reports.

Nordic investors are pinning their hopes on equities and alternatives in the coming six months, with many sacrificing their allocations to fixed income. Chris Newlands crunches the numbers.

The restrictive investment guidelines in place at Etera when new CIO Mika Pesonen arrived did not suit his vision for the fund. He is now in the process of changing the guidelines to allow the scheme to take a more tactical approach and to keep up with its competitors. Chris Newlands reports.

The Danish Early Childhood Teachers pension fund is doing well thanks to limited immediate liabilities and the low average age of its members. Thomas Escritt finds out how it is enticing them over from a defined benefit to defined contribution system.

Veritas is looking to get the best of both worlds by preparing for long-term goals while keeping one eye on short-term opportunities. However, one of the fund’s guiding principles is to stick to what it knows and get the best out of the sectors it has mastered. Reeta Cevik reports.

nrpn spoke to four large Nordic players about their current and future concerns, as well as areas of possible investment interest.

Peter Norman, executive president of Sweden’s seventh AP fund, is an advocate of pure alpha, urging investment managers to create products that do not allow them to hide behind beta performance. Hugo Greenhalgh spoke to him about the fund’s alpha-beta split, the functioning of the PPM system and the fund’s future investment plans.

ATP, Denmark’s €51bn labour market pension fund, is about to conclude its 18-month project to separate alpha and beta. The two are now embedded in a new structure, in separate portfolios and with their own CIOs. Liam Kennedy discussed the new setup with Henrik Jepsen, CIO for beta and Fredrik Martinsson, CIO for alpha.

An increasingly global and complex investment environment in the Nordic region has led many to look for external expertise. However, some large global players are finding that the way into the market is to team up with a man on the ground. Pirkko Juntunen reports.

Without a doubt, Nordic investors are beginning to view overseas property as a valuable addition to their portfolio but, with increasing cashflows into the asset class, pricing is a concern. However, many pension schemes claim that it can add value over the long term. Chris Newlands reports.

Investment in property is moving into uncharted territory – more costly, faster and with greater transparency. Quantitative methods are also very much on the increase, uncovering even more advantages to investing in the asset class. Maik Rodewald reports.

Matthew Ryall, fund manager of the European Property Fund of Funds at BlackRock, and Anthony Biddulph, director institutional sales at BlackRock, investigate if there is a justification for Nordic investors to expand their property portfolio into other parts of Europe. They conclude that there is a strong strategic argument for making this decision on the grounds of both diversification and improving returns.

A lot of talk and not much action best described the multi-national pension pooling market before Unilever very publicly seeded a fully tax transparent cross-border pensions vehicle with €2.3bn at the beginning of the year.