ICELAND - Bjarni Brynólfsson, managing director and chief investment officer of Icelandic unskilled workers’ pension fund Framsyn, has resigned to take up the post as chief investment officer of investment company Meidur.

“I have been with Framsyn for eight years and this opportunity was so attractive that I decided to go for it,” he told IPE.

Reykjavík–based Meidur is majority owned by local entrepreneurs Ágúst and Lydur Gudmundsson whose Bakkavör Group is in the process of acquiring UK-based fresh foods group Geest. Meidur owns shares in Iceland’s largest financial institution Kaupthing Bunadarbanki and locally quoted Icelandic/US sleep diagnostics company Medcare.

Brynólfsson’s departure from Framsyn on March 1 will come before it has completed a merger with seaman’s pension fund Sjomanna, which is expected to be competed on June 1.

“Framsyn’s current office manager Örn Arbthórnsson will succeed me as managing director and oversee the merger, and I will probably also be somewhat involved,” Brynólfsson told IPE.

Framsyn’s investment management will be outsourced to broker Joklor. The fund has assets under management of ISK77bn (€940m).

The portfolio is 60% bonds, 19% domestic equities, 18% foreign equities, 2% alternatives, with the rest in cash, Brynólfsson said.

The merger is part of an ongoing process which has seen the number of pension funds fall from nearly 100 to less than 50 in recent years. Now the five largest funds control some two-thirds of pension fund capital assets.