Nearly half (47.3 per cent) of the largest Finnish pension companies’ assets were invested in equities at the end of 2022, according to data from the Finnish Pension Alliance (Tela).

Around 30 per cent were in listed equities, 15 per cent were in private equity and 2 per cent were in unlisted equities.

Varma had the highest proportion of its assets in equities (48.9 per cent), while Veritas had the lowest of the large pension firms (38.3 per cent).

Fixed income was the second most popular asset type at the end of 2022 with 28.4 per cent.

Veritas had the highest level of fixed-income investment (32.6 per cent), while Varma had the lowest (25.9 per cent).

Bonds were the most popular asset class within fixed income for the largest Finnish financial companies at 20.4 per cent.

‘Other’ investments were the third most popular type of asset at 12.5 per cent of investments, with hedge funds making up almost all of that total with 11.2 per cent.

Varma held the most assets in ‘other’ investments, with 15 per cent of its assets in hedge funds, while Elo had just 9.3 per cent of its investments in hedge funds.

Finally, the largest Finnish financial companies held 11.9 per cent of their assets in real estate, with 8.6 per cent in direct real estate and 3.2 per cent in indirect real estate.

Veritas had 16 per cent of its assets in real estate, the highest level of the pension institutions’ surveyed, while Varma held the lowest proportion at 10.2 per cent.

The Local Government Pension Fund (Keva) and the state pension fund (VER) had 56.3 per cent and 51.7 per cent of their assets invested in equities, respectively.

In total, the largest Finnish pension firms (Elo, Ilmarinen, Varma and Veritas) had €144bn of invested assets.

Ilmarinen had asset allocation of €56.3bn, Varma had €56.2bn, Elo had €28.2bn and Veritas had €4.2bn, according to Tela’s statistics.

The pension companies’ average return over the year was -5.3 per cent.

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