Swedish investment houses enjoyed another deluge of local authority assets last month, with no fewer than four kommuns outsourcing their pension assets to managers.
The SEK100m (E11.0m) Swedish kommun of Osby appointed Handelsbanken, Länsförsäkringar and Carlson Investment Management to equal portions of 30-35m in assets.
The cash will be fed to managers in three stages before the year end and originates from the sale of the kommun’s energy company. The kommun looked at 15 managers before selection.
Pia Lindvall-Bengtsson, chief financial officer at Osby, says the briefs will consist of a 60% Swedish bond exposure and 40% in equities – split evenly between domestic and international shares.
“Price, historical analysis and the organisational approach to the business were the reasons we selected the managers,” she notes.
SPP also manages a portion of the kommun’s pension arrangements for its white-collar workers.
Stockholm based MPIR advised on the RFP.
SEB and KPA have also picked up a couple of ethical and environmental mandates from the SEK140m kommun of Lund.
Jan Åke Thornander, finance officer at Lund, comments: “We have placed SEK12m with SEB and SEK13m with KPA. SEB will manage the money in their environmental fund and KPA will have the money in their ethical share fund.”
Thornander also says that Alfred Berg and Ohman are set to pick up mandates from the fund – pending contractual formalities.
The kommun considered 15 managers in total.
“We took in the proposals from SEB and PKA and made a common decision regarding their policies and the offers they were making.”

Nynäshamns kommun – 60km south of Stockholm, has appointed Skandia-owned Carlson Investment Management to a SEK130m mix of equity and bond funds invested both in Sweden and internationally.
The placement is also new money following on from the sale of the kommun’s energy company to fund its pension commitments.
Håkan Sjögren, chief economist at Nynäshamns, says the fund looked at 15 managers before deciding.
“Carlson made a very good impression and seem to have a good organisation. The price for handling our money was also very attractive. Stockholm based Wassum advised on the tender process.”
Carlson has also won the mandate to manage a global balanced brief worth SEK225m from the kommun of Botkyrka, which noted Carlson’s ethical investment process as a factor in its decision.
The firm also recently picked up the mandate to run a SEK95m global balanced charity fund for the local authority of Landskrona.