Investment returns bounced back for Finland’s Etera Mutual Pension Insurance Company in the first nine months of this year, rising to 4.5% after a 0.4% loss in the same period last year.

Reporting unaudited figures for January to September 2014, Etera said the market value of its investment portfolio had grown to €5.7bn at the end of September from €5.6bn at the same point in 2013.

Stefan Björkman, managing director, said: “Our broadly diversified portfolio has worked well in the current market situation.”

He said investments generated a steady return during the third quarter of the year.

Among asset classes, fixed income produced 4.3% in the nine-month period, up from a 0.9% loss suffered in the same period the year before.

Equities, meanwhile, returned 6.2%, up from 0.4%.

Within this, listed equities returned 8.8%, recovering from the 1.8% loss reported in the comparable period a year earlier.

Property generated a return of 3.4%, little changed from last year’s 3.1%.

Etera reported a rise in its solvency ratio to 16.6% at the end of September from 15.4% at the end of December 2013.

Björkman said the company had been actively seeking domestic investment with a good return/risk ratio, with Finnish investments making up 39% of the total investment portfolio.

“We have found some good ones in both private equity and debt and real estate investments,” he said.

Meanwhile, Nordea’s Life & Pensions division saw a 13% drop in operating profit in the third quarter of this year, as a write-down of acquisition costs in its Polish unit hit results for the whole business segment.

Operating profit in the July to September period fell to €73m, down 13% from the second quarter, the Nordic and Baltic financial group said in its interim report.

It said: “The decrease is in its entirety attributable to a write-down of deferred acquisition costs in the Polish pension fund subsidiary, of €27m.”

The profit contribution from the underlying business, however, continued to increase, it said.

Gross written premiums for the life and pensions division rose to €1.61bn in the third quarter, up 14% from the same quarter in 2013.

Assets under management grew to €56.8bn at the end of September from €55.5bn at the end of June, and €53.3bn at the end of December.

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