Swedish pension company, Alecta, is facing further disruption to its management after Carina Åkerström resigned from the position of board chair after just 11 days in the role.

Åkerström was appointed on 22 February 2024 following an extraordinary board meeting. However, yesterday, 3 March, Alecta said she has announced her resignation, and the first vice-chair, Jan-Olof Jacke, will reassume his position as acting chair.

Alecta chairman of the drafting committee, Kenneth Bengtsson, said: "It is unfortunate that Carina Åkerström has changed her assessment of her ability to fulfil her assignment as chairman of the board of Alecta and has chosen to resign.

“There has been no new information that we were not already aware of. During the process, we have, of course, asked Carina Åkerström extensive questions about this. Our view is that there was no conflict of interest, which could not be handled in the usual way,” he said.

Alecta has struggled to appoint a permanent chair of the board since former chair, Ingrid Bonde, resigned in October 2023, amid two investigations by Sweden’s Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA) over the pension company’s investments.

In January, the committee of Alecta proposed Lars Rohde to become the new chair but withdrew this due to a conflict of interest. After Rohde was proposed as the new board chair, the committee became aware that Rohde was planning to also accept to be proposed to another board in the near future.

Its committee subsequently assessed that the two positions would not be compatible with one another for “competitive reasons”. Following this, the committee instead nominated Åkerström, former CEO of Handelsbanken.

Alecta has faced a turbulent year losing SEK 20bn in March 2023 following the crisis facing several US banks, which resulted in the FSA launching an investigation, while a second investigation was launched by the FSA in October 2023 into Alecta’s investments in Heimstaden Bostad.

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