Iceland’s MP Banki has sold its only pension fund in the Baltics to local investment manager Invalda LT.

The fund manages €90m for 62,000 members and was sold for €3.3m.

MP Pension Funds Baltics offers second and third-pillar pension funds.

In a statement, MP Banki said it did not have a strategy to grow in the Baltics, and that there was “very limited synergy with other parts of our businesses”.

The Bank of Lithuania has already approved the sale, and Invalda took over ownership at the beginning of the week.

Ramunas Stankevicius, who helped set up the fund in 2007, stays on as chief executive, and former board member Jon Sigurdson was appointed chairman of the board at the pension fund.

MP Banki had been in the Lithuanian market since 2007.

It said it still saw “very strong foundations” for further growth at the pension fund in a “fairly young market”.

Darius Sulnis, president at Invalda LT, agreed.

“The development of our country, as well as the growth of society’s wealth, will increase investments in pension funds and other long-term saving products,” he said.

As of the end of June, all 26 pension funds in Lithuania made positive returns, with an overall average of 4.1% for the first six months, compared with an average 4.3% for calendar 2013.

Assets in the system climbed to just over €1bn last year.

Invalda stated in its annual report for 2013 that it aimed to become one of the leading private equity, real estate, investment and pension fund management companies in the region.

In 2008, the company entered the Latvian market to start an asset management and pension fund business.

One year later, it sold its asset management subsidiary Finasta, which managed several pension funds, to Bank Snoras. 

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