ATP’s chief risk officer and chief actuary Chresten Dengsøe is leaving ATP to take the helm at Lægernes Pensionskasse, the Danish pension fund for doctors.

Dengsøe will take over as chief executive on 1 August from Niels Lihn Jørgensen, who is retiring after 25 years as the head of the pension fund.

Linda Nielsen, chairman of Lægernes Pensionskasse, said: “Lægernes Pensionskasse has developed from a traditional pension fund to a all-round business with solid skills in the pensions and banking sphere.”

At the same time, doctors’ needs had changed and there were now more demands placed upon pension funds than before, she said.

“These are some of the most important tasks Chresten Dengsøe will face at the top as the new chief executive,” Nielsen said.

She said Dengsøe had a profile that combined strong skills in pensions, risk management, leadership and investment.

As well as being chief executive of Lægernes Pensionskasse and Lægernes Pensionsbank, he would also be responsible for the unit Lægernes Pensionsinvestering, she said.

ATP, meanwhile, said Ulla Schjødt-Hansen, vice president, had been named as acting chief actuary. 

Its chief executive Carsten Stendevad thanked Dengsøe for his contribution to the statutory pension fund and congratulated his on the new challenges.

An ATP spokesman said the pension fund would now start a structured process to identify suitable candidates to replace Dengsøe.

In other news, Danish labour-market pension fund PensionDanmark returned between 4.2% and 6.9% in the first quarter of this year on the back of rising equities prices, and saw regular contributions climb by 8%.

In absolute terms, the pension fund made a return of DKK9.8bn (€1.3bn) between January and March, up from DKK4.2bn in the same period last year, according to the first quarter data.

This fed through into a 4.2% return on the savings of 65-year-old members and 6.9% for 40-year-olds, up from 3.0% and 2.6% respectively in the first quarter of 2014.

Regular contributions rose 8% to DKK2.57bn from DKK2.37bn, and the increase confirmed that employment at companies that have pension schemes with PensionDanmark was starting to grow strongly, the fund said.

Torben Möger Pedersen, chief executive of PensionDanmark, said: “We are very pleased with result in the first quarter, when, we, like other investors, benefited well from rising share prices.”

But the pension fund continued to see significant swings on financial markets, and was therefore continuing to build up its portfolio of stable alternatives, he said.

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