Fonditel continues to be one of Spain’s strongest pension gestoras, winning for the second year, an IPE Award for the investment strategy of one of its pension funds – Fonditel B. This covers pension provision for employees of 25 companies affiliated to the Telefónica group.
Fonditel B has assets under management of around €100m, and although it’s much smaller than the €3.5bn Antares 2 – the pension fund for Telefónica employees that won an IPE Award last year– its more flexible investment strategy has proved to be successful.
“The most significant characteristic of Fonditel B is that the investment strategy we are using is suitable for the pension plans of 25 different companies,” says Luis Peña, Fonditel’s chief executive in Madrid. “The strategy is different from that of Antares 2, because the active members of this fund are younger, so we can follow a more aggressive approach to investment.”
In terms of asset allocation, Fonditel B follows a benchmark of 50% equities and 50% bonds. “But we can go up or down 25% in any of these categories, so the fund can either have a high exposure to equities or follow a very conservative approach. It gives us a lot freedom when it comes to asset management and so far we are happy with the fund’s performance.”
For Peña, who replaces Santiago Fernández as the gestora’s CEO, winning a second IPE country award is a real honour and does not deny they would love to be one of the winners in the European category. “We know we are doing things well and Europe is always our reference,” he says. “We are getting closer and closer to what some of our European counterparts are doing in terms of occupational pension funds, especially in the Netherlands.”
Peña adds: “These awards are a great way to recognise the work that pension and investment professionals are doing all over Europe, and we’ll be delighted to participate again next year.”

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