Fondenergia, the Italian pension fund for workers in Italy’s energy sector, is investing €55m in infrastructure and private equity funds, bringing the total assets allocated to private markets by the scheme in the last few years to €380m.
The latest round of investments is split into €20m allocated to Azimut Libera Impresa’s infrastructure fund and €35m to Neuberger Bergman’s private equity fund, according to Fondenergia.
Since a strategic asset allocation review started in 2020, the pension fund has invested €73m in a private equity alternative investment fund (AIF) managed by Neuberger Bergman, €127m in Bank of Italy, €125m in four AIFs for infrastructure run by Azimut, the F2i Ania Fund in the insurance sector, F2i Fund V Fund for sustainable infrastructure, and Green Arrow Infrastructure Fund for alternative sources of energy, it said.
The scheme has invested €70m of its bilanciato sub-fund in the Bank of Italy, and €57m from its dinamico sub-fund in a second round to buy a 1.7% stake in the bank.
In Q1 2023, Fondenergia has continued to pursue its strategic goals with regard to alternative investments, making further investments in funds already selected in 2022: the F2i sustainable infrastructure fund, and the Green Arrow Infrastructure fund, for a total amount of €40m, it said in the financial statement for 2022.
“[These] investments can have characteristics of stability and solidity and have the purpose of optimising the overall risk/return profile of [Fondenergia’s] sub-funds, cementing the possibility of structuring investment policies in important sectors for strategic growth,” said Mario Cribari, the fund’s president.
Fondenergia took further action last year, pushing for alternative investments, reviewing its strategic asset allocation to diversify investments, containing the negative impact of the performance of its liquid assets portfolio, trying to benefit from Italy’s recovery and resilience investment and reform plan agreed with the EU.
Last year, the performance Fondenergia’s sub-funds was heavily hit by market volatility, with its garantito sub-fund returning -0.51%, the bilanciatio -11.17%, and the dinamico -9.71%.
The scheme adopted a new strategic asset allocation for the three sub-funds at the beginning of this year.
Under the new strategy, the garantito sub-fund invests 83% of its assets in sovereign debt, 8% in corporate debt, 4% in equities, and 5% in other assets. The Bilanciato sub-fund now invests 41% of assets in sovereign debt, 18% in corporate debt, 24% in equities and 15% in other assets. The dinamico sub-fund allocates 21% of assets to sovereign debt, 14% to corporate debt, 45% to equities, and 18% to other assets, according to the financial statement.
Fondenergia has 45,978 members and 250 firms on its books, as at the end of 2022, with total assets worth approximately €2.9bn, and contributions amounting last year to €333m, the highest amount so far after members of the pension fund for Exxonmobil joined the scheme in January 2022.
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