Anders Svennesen is leaving his position as co-CIO at Danish pensions giant ATP to take up a new role as CIO of Danica Pension on 1 December, Danica has announced.

Svennesen will replace Peter Lindegaard, the Danske-Bank subsidiary’s previous CIO, who left the company in August.

Jacob Aarup-Andersen, CFO at Danica, said: “Over a long period of time, Anders has managed to generate fine results for ATP in asset allocation, which is one of the most important disciplines for delivering high customer returns.”

Svennesen will be responsible for developing Danica’s investment department.

A spokesman for ATP said the pension fund had people with strong skills in-house that could take over Svennesen’s tasks, including Kasper Ahrndt Lorenzen, who had recently been appointed as chief investment portfolio manager at ATP.

“Anders has been with ATP for 14 years and has made a very positive contribution – we wish him all the best,” the spokesman said.

One of Svennesen’s first tasks, the company said, will be to continue with an increased focus on direct investments.

Danica said it would invest more than DKK10bn (€1.3bn) over the next few years in “solid” Danish and foreign companies.

Svennesen said he was looking forward to becoming part of Danica.

“The years ahead offer a challenging investment climate in which it will be more important than ever to position oneself correctly in the market,” he said.

A big part of the company’s investment activity will be getting access to unique and attractive opportunities, he said.

“Danica Pension has access to these areas partly through its collaboration with Danske Bank,” Svennesen said.

Danica is set to unveil a new investment strategy focusing on investing directly in companies, but announced its first major direct investment already in July.

This was the purchase of a minority stake in marine logistics firm Unifeeder for DKK400m. 

Aarup-Andersen came to Danica Pension at the beginning of June as CFO and one of the subsidiary’s three directors, from Danske Capital – another part of the Danske Bank group.

When Lindegaard left two months later, Danica explained the departure, saying both he and Aarup-Andersen thought it made sense to find another investment director with different skills.

Svennesen has worked at ATP since 1999, apart from a brief spell at ABN AMRO.

Before joining ATP, he was an economist at the Danish central bank.

At ATP, he began as portfolio manager responsible for investments in Danish and foreign bonds and for credit and inflation.

In 2008, he took charge of the pension fund’s beta portfolio and external managers, and joined ATP’s risk and investment committee.

He became co-CIO of ATP in 2011.

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