SWEDEN – SPP group has formally announced its name change to Alecta, following the insurance company’s sale of SPP Liv, SPP Fonder and the brand name, to Handelsbanken in December.

With more than SEK350bn in managed assets and 28,000 client companies representing 1.4m workers and pensioners, Alecta will focus on its considerable pensions business.

“ We will now concentrate on being an efficient and reliable administrator and manager of the ITP plan for private sector_workers with a continued high return on capital,” says Lars Otterbeck, chief executive officer at Alecta.

Handelsbanken bought SPP Liv and SPP Fonder in a SEK7.1bn deal in December after the Swedish agency for fair trade criticised SPP’s role as both a market monopoly and a free agent.
Until the early 1990s, the company had a monopoly on white-collar workers’ pensions, through the ITP pension plan introduced in the 1960s by the Swedish Employers’ Confederation (SAF) and the PTK cartel of 28 labour unions.