SWEDEN – The Örebro municipality, the seventh largest in Sweden, is tendering a SEK19m (€2m) contract for a new pensions administrator as part of its four-yearly review.

Örebro is located in the centre of Sweden, roughly 200km from Stockholm.

“We are looking for a new administrator,” a spokesperson told IPE. “Our former administrator is a large company, which we have been served by for 20 years.”

Stockholm-based KPA Pension was the old administrator. Its clients include roughly 1,000 employers who have approximately 1m staff working in municipalities, county councils, regional and municipal companies

KPA is 60% owned by Swedish insurance company Folksam. The Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions holds the remaining 40%.

According to the tender notice, the council is looking for financial markets administration services, services auxiliary to insurance and pension funding, and pension and insurance services except compulsory social security services.

No consultant will be used in the tendering and selection process. “We are managing this affair by ourselves,” said the spokesperson.

Tenders and requests to participate must be drawn up in Swedish.

The closing date is June 29. Örebro hopes to appoint a new administrator by December 1.

Meanwhile, Swedish pension funds and insurance companies bought SEK14.1bn (€1.5bn) of foreign equities in March, according to the Riksbank.

The central bank said: “The largest share of the acquisition concerned US, Norwegian, and Swiss equity securities.

It added that Swedish investors bought a net SEK44.1bn of foreign debt securities in the period.