SWEDEN - The Second Swedish National Pension Fund, AP2, made an 8.4% return on its investments in the first six months of 2005.

The figures come after it terminated 16 external mandates earlier this year to manage more assets itself.

Andra AP-fonden revealed in February that it had terminated four Swedish and 12 European equities mandates, which had underperformed their benchmarks in 2004.

The fund said today that its invested capital rose SEK14.9bn (euro) in the first half to SEK173.0bn, including inflows. It said the result for the period was SEK13.2bn.

“We are proud of this result,” said outgoing chief executive Lars Idermark. “The selection of benchmark portfolio and choice of index were key factors in achieving a satisfactory return on assets in 2005.”

He added: “We have also introduced a number of measures to further enhance the efficient management of invested assets.

“There has been a sharp reduction in the number of external managers and a greater proportion of the assets under management has been handled in-house.”

Idermark, who has been at AP2 for five years, is to leave the fund at the end of October to join consumer association KF as chief executive.

Fellow buffer fund AP3 is set to publish its first-half returns on August 24.