Swedish pension fund AP4 has nabbed back its former bond trader after nearly a decade.
The public buffer fund confirmed today that it has appointed Ulf Erlandsson as a senior portfolio manager within its fixed-income and foreign exchange unit.
He will be the sole manager of AP4’s liquid credit portfolio, which primarily comprises corporate bonds.
Erlandsson spent eight years as a senior portfolio manager at AP4, leaving in 2017 to join a climate-focused hedge fund run by Skruturinvest.
After a brief stint running a climate-tilted credit fund for Sector Asset Management, he set up his own think tank, the Anthropocene Fixed Income Institute (AFII), in 2020.
It has conducted in-depth research on topics including deforestation risk, bond stewardship and developments in the sustainability-linked bond market.
Erlandsson has stepped down as the organisation’s CEO, but will remain in an advisory capacity.
Justine Leigh-Bell will move from AFII’s co-CEO to its full-time leader.
At AP4, Erlandsson replaces Jonas Ranneby, who had been in place since 2018, but recently moved to fellow Swedish buffer fund AP3, where he is also a senior fixed-income manager.
AP3 and AP4 are in the process of beefing up their teams, in response to a decision by the Swedish government to dissolve their sibling fund AP1, and split its assets between the pair.
The move saw some a combined SEK510bn (€47.6bn) transferred at the end of last year – estimated to bring both funds’ assets under management to more than SEK800bn. The Swedish buffer system reform also inculdes private equity specialist fund AP6 being incorporated into AP2.
When asked if Erlandsson’s appointment was part of an attempt to better integrate climate considerations into AP4’s fixed-income decisions, head of sustainability Tobias Fransson told IPE:
“At AP4, it is every portfolio manager’s task to integrate sustainability into their respective investment processes.
“No doubt Ulf will put his mark on the way the credit portfolio will be managed in many different ways.”
