PFA Pension, Denmark’s largest commercial pension fund, has put a new asset management team in place following the loss of its joint heads of the division to Danica earlier this year, poaching Henrik Nøhr Poulsen from his job as CIO at Industriens Pension.

PFA Pension, which manages assets of DKK552bn (€74n), said it appointed Nøhr Poulsen as one of the three directors of its subsidiary PFA Asset Management.

He will take up the post on 1 December.

The other two directors of the three-man management team will be Christian Lindstrøm Lage and Rasmus Bessing, who are already in their roles as directors.

In the new management team, Nøhr Poulsen will be in charge of equities and alternative investments, while Lindstrøm will be responsible for fixed income and credit, and Bessing for back and middle office.

Henrik Henriksen, PFA’s chief strategist – who has been acting as the third director of PFA Asset Management alongside Lindstrøm Lage and Bessing recently – will continue is his role as part of the leadership team in PFA’s investment and risk business area, with particular responsibility for investment strategy, client mandates and communication.

In May, Danica announced that it hired the joint managing directors of PFA Asset Management Poul Kobberup and Jesper Langmack.

Danica said at the time the appointments were part of the new investment strategy conceived by its CFO Jacob Aarup-Andersen and approved a year ago.

Following that announcement, PFA said its group director Anders Damgaard would take over the daily management of PFA Asset Management.

Once the three permanent directors are in place, Damgaard will continue to have overall responsibility for PFA’s investment strategy, including PFA Asset Management’s activities.

Anders Damgaard said: “It is a pleasure to be able to say we now have a strengthened and forward-looking team in place in PFA Asset Management.”

He said PFA had taken the current team as the basis for identifying those areas that would be strengthened further.

No one at PFA was immediately available to say which these areas were.

Damgaard Jensen said the new leadership at the asset management division was built on the strong investment team it already has, and that some new faces would be joining this team.

Erik Hallarth is coming to PFA as chief portfolio manager, while Henrik Nordestgaard – who has been a director at Barclays Capital in London for the last few years – will join PFA Asset Management shortly.

Hallarth was previously CIO at Denmark’s AP Pension.

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