The Antares 2 Pension Fund, managed by Fonditel, is the pension fund for Telefonica employees, and as such is the largest in Spain in terms of assets which stand at e3.8bn. This represents a massive 22% of the Spanish occupational pensions system and 10% of the country’s total complementary pension system.
“We were naturally delighted to win the IPE award for Spain, but are confident that we deserve the recognition,” says chief executive Santiago Valbuena. “You could say we have come from nowhere against a difficult background to institutional investment in Spain. Despite this we constantly strive to attain the highest international standards in everything we do. That includes our administration and fund structure as much as in our investment strategy. This means as well as exhibiting transparency, we also seek out new asset classes in the manner of the older funds in the US, UK and the Netherlands. I would say we are virtually alone in Spain in this respect, but that should change. As the largest fund we are looked upon as something of a beacon by the other funds.”
He points out that there have been three distinct phases in the development of the investment strategy. “The first is often overlooked, but this involved educating the trustees and members on the concept of risk. That is, showing them that it must be engaged in fund management, and rather than be something to be avoided, in order to maximise returns it must be controlled.”
The second period stretched from 1992–96. “This was the beginning of the fund, but was domestically orientated,” says Valbuena. This was a time of high returns on public debt in Spain, and a recovering stock exchange. The fund met its targets by concentrating in these areas. From 1997, however, the fund undertook a transition in its equity and bond holdings. The equity portfolio went from being 100% Spanish to stand at 82% international stocks at the present. From 1998 the EMU project also meant that domestic investments were deemed to be any in the Euro-zone.
“I am particularly proud of this change, especially the moves from fixed interest to equity. We do not shy away from comparisons with any funds over this period,” Valbuena adds.
“We are also proud of our communications system, both with the trustees and our members. As a defined contribution plan we know how important that is, and have established web access for easy information download.”

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