Finland’s Etera reported a 1.3% investment return for the first half of this year, down from 3.7% in the same period in 2015, and said Britian’s vote to leave the Europen Union had had no real impact on its investments over the period.
In its interim report, the mutual pensions insurance company said the market value of investments dipped to €5.90bn at the end of June 2016, down from €5.94bn at the end of June 2015.
Stefan Björkman, Etera’s chief executive, said: “Brexit did not rattle Etera’s investment portfolio or solvency.”
He said the firm’s investment strategy had proved successful.
“The market movement caused by Brexit has not had any greater impact on our investment portfolio than normal day-to-day fluctuations,” he said.
Investment returns continued to develop positively in July, after the reporting period ended, he said, with Etera’s January-to-July return on investments at 2.4%.
Fixed-income investments returned 2.0% in the first half, down from 2.4%, while equities produced a slim return of 0.2%, down from 7.8% in the same period last year.
Real estate investments produced 2.8%, up from 2.0%, and other investments — a category which includes hedge funds and commodities — made a 0.2% loss, down from a 1.3% profit.
Etera said it was continuing to actively seek investments within Finland, and that domestic investments made up 37% of its total investments at the end of June.
In Etera’s full-year 2015 data, the share of domestic investments was 38%.
It said Finnish investments made in the first quarter of this year included the acquisition of a share of forest owner Finsilva, based in central Finland, and a share of the cleantech company BMH Technologies, in which it had jointly invested alongside Finnish Industry Investment, government-owned investment company.
Etera’s solvency capital decreased to €715m at the end of June from €751m at the end of December, falling to 13.5% of technical provisions from 14.2%.
However, compared to March 2016, the solvency ratio had risen slightly.
No comments yet