After re-organisation in 1999 led to the management of the pension fund of the bank employees being established in-house, the team have carved out a reputation for innovative expansionist thinking.
Faced with the two differing kinds of funds in Finland – pension companies and corporate funds – the bank’s managers wanted to measure themselves against a different benchmark.
“We tend to look for global benchmarks, and identify trends rather than follow the local market and our domestic peers,” says Matti Kuhakoski of El kekassa.
This is one of the areas that distinguish the fund in Finland, and may have attracted the judges’ attention, but there are others. “To begin with, we have expanded into newer, globally popular asset classes such as hedge funds and private equity.
“Furthermore, we have set out on a programme designed to diversify our equity holdings, replacing domestic holdings with international ones. Originally we would have been holding around 75–80% of our equities on the local listing. Currently, half our holding is held outside of Finland, and one third outside the eurozone, which is a dramatic change.”
The same rule of thumb applies to fixed interest, where the fund managers have already begun to look to the Euro-zone as a single entity suitable for investment. “On the management side, we are similar to our peers in the way we operate, with one or two exceptions,” says Kuhakoski.
“The main difference is that because we are one of the larger funds, the total value of the company’s investment assets is around E2.5bn, we do have monies available to invest in newer and more sophisticated systems. We manage internally around 50% of the liquid assets.This separates us from many other funds, which will outsource up to 100% of assets. In our case we try to specialise in areas which we believe have added value and outsource the remainder, for example our foreign equity holdings which is dealt with wholly by external managers.”
So far as the awards are concerned Kuhakoski says the team were delighted to be recognised in the inaugural awards, which he hopes will become a ‘tradition’ in the industry.
“It is not something we can use as a marketing tool to attract clients, as ours is a fixed-base.
“However, we can use it internally as it shows we are creating value for the employer. We do, after all, have to have a reason to exist!"

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