FINLAND - Pension insurer Etera and local authority pension fund Keva are the latest Finnish institutions to post first quarter returns of 4% and above.

Etera returned 4% for the first three months of 2010 and Keva returned 4.8% over the same time period.

Their results are in line with the Finnish pension industry in general, with performance driven by rising equity markets (see earlier IPE article: Finnish pension insurers reap equity rewards)

Keva's equity portfolio returned 7.7%, with fixed income returning 3.5% and real estate returning 0.6%.

Keva's assets under management now total €26.2bn, up from €24.8bn at the beginning of the year - the first time its total assets under management have surpassed €26bn.

Etera's performance followed the same trend and was also driven by equities, which returned 9.6%.

Its fixed income investments returned 3.1%, as corporate bond prices continued to increase, while its real estate portfolio lost 0.8% as a result of the negative development of some property funds in January.

Etera's €5.4bn portfolio is invested in 52% fixed income, 32% in equities, 14% in property, 10% in loans to members and 3% in other asset classes.
As a result of the positive performance, the solvency ratio was 21.5% or 2.5 times the solvency limit.