SWEDEN - Svenska Kyrkans Pensionskassa, the Swedish Church Pension Fund, has allocated SEK250m (€26.3m) in global equities to Sustainable Asset Management (SAM).

The mandate will grow further as the church pension fund, valued at SEK 7.7bn (€812m), reallocates more to responsible investments.

The fund said it would be increasing investment in a portfolio run by Ethos Sverige (SEB) by SEK130m, while investment in the SAM global fund would increase by a further SEK135m, of which SEK 55m would be "new money" and the rest would be diverted from the Kammarkollegiet mandate.

Kammarkollegiet, Sweden's national legal, financial and administrative services agency, currently manages capital for a number of organisations linked to the state or the Church of Sweden.

The fund said the award to SAM had been influenced by the fact that the investment fund of the Church of Sweden, Trossamfundet Svenska Kyrkan, already used SAM; so the pension fund "got a good price", while it added it was also possible to "ensure the fund is working with an ethical profile in accordance with the church's value base".

In addition, the pension fund revealed it has now completed a deal with Carnegie Investment Bank, in which it has sold its allocation for share-index bonds, valued at SEK1,350m, in return for a share-index certificate.

Gunilla Tisander, fund secretary, said the bonds - kommuninvest strukturobligation världen - had an expiry date of January 3 2009 and in the period leading up to its expiry the investment starts "behaving" like interest-bearing instruments.

The pension fund revealed it had to take action to increase its equity portfolio as if it did nothing equity exposure would fall to 19%, which is almost half the stated target of the scheme's financial policy of at least 35%.

As a result, the pension fund said it had completed the deal with Carnegie, which involved purchasing a share certificate - kommuninvest Lån 550 - that expires on January 5 2009.

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