Credit Suisse Asset Management has taken over a mandate for the garantito investment option at Previambiente, the Italian pension fund for workers in the environmental hygiene and related sectors, from Amundi, IPE understands.

Previambiente handed out a €300m mandate for its garantito investment option to Credit Suisse AM. Amundi managed assets for a total of €282.98m for the scheme, according to the pension fund’s financial statement for 2020.

Previambiente’s garantito option recorded a gross return of 0.15% in 2021 against a benchmark of 0.73%.

Investments in the garantito sub-fund aim to achieve returns equal to or higher than those of the severance pay Trattamento di Fine Rapporto (TFR), according to the financial statement, which noted returns for the TFR option last year reached 1.50%.

According to scheme’s investment policy, assets in the garantito sub-fund are allocated mainly to bonds (95%) and the remaining 5% to equities. The equity exposure may go down to less than 5% or up to a maximum of 10%.

Net assets for benefits in the fund amounted to €295.60m as of July, up from €285.75m in January.

Credit Suisse AM had already won a €800m mandate on a 10-year contract from Fondo Fon.Te, the pension fund for Italy’s commerce, tourism and service sector workers, to run its conservativo option.

INARCASSA looks at ESG for equities

The board of directors of Inarcassa, the pension fund for self-employed engineers and architects, has reviewed equity investments in Europe with the goal to increase its alignment to ESG principles, the fund said in a note.

Inarcassa has continued with illiquid allocations by financing Italian small and medium-sized firms through private equity, infrastructures and venture capital funds, confirming the interest in supporting the domestic real economy, it added.

Its assets rose to a new all-time high, close to € 12.7bn at the end of August, up from €12.5bn at the end of the first half of this year, driven by the positive performance of financial markets.

AUM growth for industry-wide schemes slows down

Assets managed by industry-wide pension funds – fondi pensione negoziali – increased by 7.54% year-on-year in 2020 to €60.36bn, below the 11.4% recorded in the prior year due to impact of the pandemic on returns, according to a report of think thank Itinerari Previdenziali.

The income from contributions and asset management performance amounted to € 4.23bn last year, compared with € 5.73bn in 2019.

Among the pension funds with the most significant increase in terms of assets was Cometa, the national supplementary pension fund for the metal industry, with an increase of €770m, from €11.9bn in 2019 to €12.7bn in 2020.

The pension fund for the chemical sector, Fonchim, saw an increase of €528m, Fon.Te of €352m, Laborfonds of €309m, and Fondenergia of €220m, the report said.

The fondi pensione negoziali recorded returns of 3.1% in 2020, down from 7.2% in 2019, hit by negative performance on financial markets in the first part of last year.

The 33 industry-wide pension funds counted more than 3.2 million members in 2020, an increase of 100,000 members compared with 2019.

BlackRock topped the ranking for the largest asset manager in Italy for the industry-wide pension funds with a market share of 11.13%, ahead of Eurizon Capital with 10.30%, Amundi 8.61% and Credit Suisse Asset Management with a market share of 6.89%.

Assets managed by institutional investors increased overall to €269.84bn in 2020 from €260.68bn in 2019, equalling to 16.3% of the GDP, according to the report.

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