A typical pension customer with Danish pension company PFA received a return of 7.6 per cent in the first half of 2023, according to PFA’s half-year report.

PFA’s customers in its recommended ‘profile C’ product had the 7.6 per cent return, with the pension company returning between 0.8 per cent and 10.3 per cent in PFA Plus, and between 0.9 per cent and 7.4 per cent in PFA Klima Plus.

The pension company stated that the positive investment returns were due to, among other things, effective risk management and increased exposure to US equities.

Returns on equity investments in particular contributed to the positive return in the first six months of the year.

"Over the past three years, we have created a return of 22 per cent to an average customer, and that despite a major downturn in the financial markets in 2022,” said PFA CEO, Ole Krogh Petersen.

“I am really happy that we have created returns at the top of the commercial pension market.

“It shows that we have a good and robust investment strategy, where we adjust our risk and can mitigate the worst losses when the markets fall like in 2022, and at the same time get out of the starting block well when the markets are again more positive like this year.”

During H1, PFA received a “significant increase” in contributions, from DKK 22.7bn in H1 2022 to DKK 26.3bn in H1 2023, the highest PFA has ever received over a six-month period.

PFA stated that this growth was due to an increase in current payments of 6 per cent year-on-year to DKK 14.9bn.

Furthermore, one-off payments also rose during the same period, from DKK 8.6bn to DKK 11.5bn.

Overall, net contributions rose to DKK 7.5bn.

During the half-year, PFA achieved a result of DKK 347m, up from DKK -910m in the first half of last year.

The improvement was driven by more favourable financial markets and a “significant improvement” in the underlying operations.

“Our customers and thus PFA have come through the first six months of the year well,” said Krogh Petersen.

“After a tough 2022, it is positive that we can deliver solid and positive returns at the top of the commercial pension market.

“I am delighted that more new customers choose us, while at the same time we manage to retain our existing customers. This leads to high growth in payments and means that our business and customer base are growing significantly.”

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