Investments at Sweden’s fourth buffer fund, AP4, returned 7.2% in the first half of this year, up from the 6.3% total return after expenses produced for the same period a year ago, according to interim financial figures from the fund.
The fund said its long-term total gains were more relevant, with the return over the last 10 years amounting to an average of 7.3% a year, or 6.1% in real terms.
It said the return in the first half of this year had been helped by the high proportion of equities held in the overall portfolio.
Total assets increased in value to SEK276bn (€29.8bn) at the end of June, from SEK259.7bn at the end of 2013.
Net profit rose to SEK18.7bn from SEK14.4bn.
AP4, whose assets are used to meet some of the shortfall between payments and receipts in the Swedish pension system, said it had paid a net amount of more than SEK22bn into the pension system since the beginning of 2009.
The pension fund said its active investment management had meant it outperformed the benchmark by more than 0.3 percentage points before expenses, compared with the 0.1 percentage point outperformance it achieved in the same period a year before.
Currency exposure grew slightly to 29.2% at the end of June from 28.6% at the end of December.
Meanwhile, AP2, the second buffer fund, has put out an EU tender for a provider to create a portfolio management system for private equity and real estate.
The pension fund said it needed an integrated portfolio management and decision support system for its private equity and real estate portfolios.
It said the system should be able to support and meet the needs of front, middle and back-office staff over the whole life-cycle of an investment.
This is to include relationship management, tracking transactions, reporting, monitoring, benchmarking, portfolio company information and accounting, it said on its website.
The final date for questions about the contract is 29 July, while the deadline for applications to submit a tender is 15 August.
After that date, five applicants will be chosen to submit a tender by 15 September.
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