Danish funds pool assets mandate
Three sector-wide Danish pension funds have pooled assets and appointed US investment manager T Rowe Price to run a DKr1.5bn (e201m) global high-yield bond brief.
The engineers’ scheme, Dansk Ingeniørforenings pensionskasse (DIP), the doctors’ pension fund, Lægernes pensionskasse (LPK), and the fund for lawyers and economists, Juristernes og økonomernes pensionskasse (JØP), are joining forces on investment for the first time.
“I think that the reasons behind this are that all the funds are middle-sized pension funds with a rather small internal investment team,” says Claus Stampe, CIO at LPK. He notes that economic reasons are partly behind the decision but the main idea is to co-operate and bring opinions together.
Flemming Madsen, responsible for institutional sales to the Nordic region from T Rowe Price’s Copenhagen office, comments: “Traditionally Danish pension funds have been large bond holders and they are looking for more diversification. However, for them to diversify it doesn’t make sense to move into European government bonds, I think they are looking for something further away.”