Mats Andersson, chief executive of Sweden’s AP4, is to step down after a decade leading the buffer fund.
Andersson said it had been a “privilege” to head up AP4 since 2006 and that he would remain in his current role until a replacement was found.
He stressed that his departure would give him time to pursue other opportunities but said they were unlikely to be operational in nature.
“For example, I received an offer from László Szombatfalvy to work more actively with his Global Challenges Foundation, which feels like an enticing continuation of the climate work we at the Fourth AP Fund have conducted together with the UN and international pension funds in recent years,” he said in a statement.
The Global Challenges Foundation has set itself a target of informing about how to “combat the greatest global risks”.
Last year, it funded a project helping scientists brief world leaders ahead of the Paris climate change conference on the measures needed to avoid dangerous climate change.
Its goals would build on the work overseen by Andersson during his time at AP4, which saw the fund as co-founder of the Portfolio Decarbonisation Coalition, which was targeting the decarbonisation of $100bn (€92bn) in assets but by December had attracted support to lower the carbon output of $600bn worth of holdings.
AP4 in 2014 also unveiled a low-carbon equity index, a project developed with France’s Fonds de Réserve pour les Retraites and MSCI.
Andersson said he was departing at a time when the fund was the largest of the four buffer funds, with SEK310bn (€33.1bn) in capital at the end of 2015.
Prior to joining AP4, he was CIO of Skandia Asset Management and also worked as head of Nordic equities at Deutsche Bank.
He also spent several years as an equity portfolio manager at AP3.
His departure is the second senior role to fall vacant at AP4 in recent months, following the decision of Björn Kvarnskog, head of equities, to join Australia’s Future Fund as head of global equities.
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