Swedish national pensions buffer fund AP3 is bolstering its 70-strong team, including the recruitment of new staff to manage listed as well as unlisted investments, as it prepares to take on 50% more assets in the upcoming reform.

Fellow buffer fund AP4 is also hiring again, having paused recruitment efforts in the uncertainty around which of the three Stockholm-based AP buffer funds would be chosen as the remaining two, and which would be axed.

In January, it was announced that AP1 would be liquidated, and its assets transferred equally to AP3 and AP4, as part of a reform of the buffer fund system to be implemented by 1 January 2026.

Two weeks ago, AP3 launched hiring processes for 13 jobs, including roles within the management of equities, currency, credit, real estate, as well as for roles such as quantitative analyst, head of legal and compliance and accounting economist.

Meanwhile, AP4 – which also stands to receive half of AP1’s around SEK500bn of assets – is currently advertising for four roles, including equities trader/analyst, risk/return analyst and risk controller.

The buffer fund said of the prospect of the increased capital: “This means AP4 will strengthen certain existing units, vacancies and new recruitments that have been paused during the legal process.”

Lil Larås Lindgren

Lil Larås Lindgren at AP3

Lil Larås Lindgren, head of communications at AP3, said the fund – which had 70 staff at the end of 2024 – would incorporate the financial assets from AP1 into its existing organisational structure, portfolio structure and administrative processes and systems.

“AP3 has conducted a review of the staffing and competence needs to be able to take over the financial assets,” she told IPE.

“We primarily see a need to strengthen in the areas that directly work with the management and handling of both listed and unlisted assets (public market assets and private market assets).

“Asset management is scalable, but not fully,”  Larås Lindgren said, adding: “We also see a need to strengthen in administrative functions that support the asset management area.”

Jobs advertised so far are a mix of vacancies and new roles, and cover the majority of the recruitments AP3 intends to do as part of the consolidation, she said.

“We will initiate some recruitments after the summer when we see the outcome of current recruitments, and when we have a deeper understanding of the assets that will be transferred from AP1 to AP3,” she added.

Asked whether AP3 would hire people from AP1 as it wound down, she said: “AP3 of course looks positively at employees from AP1 applying for the vacant positions that are advertised, but also needs to take into account that it is the most qualified applicant that can be offered the respective role based on the fact that we are a government agency.”

When financial markets minister Niklas Wykman launched the review in October 2023 into cutting costs in the national pensions buffer fund system, he said some of the SEK2bn a year the AP funds costed to operate was pure additional costs of having many funds.

Because the salary level at the AP funds was significantly higher than at other agencies, care should be taken not to have more staffing than necessary, he said at the time.

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