Enpam, the €28bn pension fund for doctors in Italy, has shifted to more granular allocations to innovative SMEs and start-ups by investing a further €190m as part of its private equity programme to invest in the domestic economy in Italy.
The pension fund decided to invest €169.4m in innovative SMEs and €18.7m in start-ups following an analysis of its private markets programme conducted with its asset managers, it said in a document handed over to the parliamentary committee investigating Italian pension funds‘ investment strategies.
Enpam takes on average a 20% stake in the funds investing in innovative companies, it added.
First pillar pension funds for professionals and industry-wide pension funds have been questioned by the Italian government, digging into their investment policies and asking them to be clearer in their contribution to Italy’s economic growth.
So far, over 30% of the total amount committed to private markets by Enpam, amounting to €1.9bn, targets investments in Italy. Over €1bn has already been invested, while over €850m is still available for investments, the fund said.
Around €520m were invested in Italian private equity, private debt and venture capital programmes in 2024 alone.
Enpam holds a total of €12.82bn in Italian investments out of a total of €28bn, as of February this year, including approximately €3bn in Italian government bonds, and around €2bn in Italian listed equities, said the fund’s president, Alberto Oliveti, during an audit before the parliamentary committee.
In the past, the pension fund has invested €150m in innovative start-ups through an Italian fund focused on the health sector to fund a company developing new immunotherapies for cancer patients. The company raised a further €240m from strategic investors in the pharmaceutical sector.
Chief investment officer Pierluigi Curti said during the audit that Enpam invested in innovative start-ups in southern Italy to support the economy in the region alongside the government.
Private equity investments suffered for a while in terms of returns, therefore, with a review of its investment governance, Enpam decided to start a more structured programme to invest in private markets.
“Our private market programme has an Italian bias, and we know that Italy needs investments in small and medium-sized firms, and now returns [generated by Enpam’s private markets investments] are in line with those generated by [other] asset classes,” the CIO said during the audit.
Enpam plans to keep its private markets allocation stable, targeting 12-13% returns in private equity and 7-8% in private debt, the CIO added.
He warned, however, that “regulatory volatility” undermines the rationale of the strategies chosen in the past and this, in the future, can make investments in private markets for the pension fund less attractive.
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