News in brief: 24 April

- De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) has given approval for Provisum, the pension fund for retailer C&A in the Netherlands, to switch to the new Dutch pension system.

DNB assessed Provisum’s application and informed the fund of its formal decision, specifically that it has decided not to impose a ban on value transfer as referred to in Section 150m(2) of the Pensions Act. This means that Provisum is allowed to transfer existing pension entitlements to the new scheme. The fund expects to switch to the new system on 1 June 2026, following a previous delay.

- Sweden's KPA Pension, part of the Folksam Group, is to acquire a residential portfolio consisting of 26 properties with approximately 2,500 apartments.

The properties, which total approximately 150,000 square meters of leasable area, were built in the past 20 years. The properties are located across Sweden: 55 per cent in Stockholm & Mälardalen, 35 per cent in Malmö & Lund and 10 per cent in Karlstad & Östersund. The sellers are SEB’s three property funds, Domestica Bostäder I, III and IV. Brick Advokat, Svalner Atlas Advisors, and Anthesis acted as advisers to the Folksam Group on the transaction. Meanwhile, Colliers, Magnusson and Causey Westling acted as advisers to the selling funds. Completion is scheduled for early June 2026. The acquisition forms part of the Folksam Group’s long-term strategy to invest in sustainable and secure living environments. Given its size, the transaction is subject to approval by the Swedish Competition Authority.

- Dutch pension funds PMT and PME have both invested a further €50m in Dutch deep-tech scale-ups through the Strategic Partners Fund (SPF).

PMT and PME have both previously invested €50m through the SPF, bringing the total investment from both funds to €200m. The fund is managed by Innovation Industries. In total, PMT has invested €250m in Innovation Industries funds. With this round of investment, PMT aims to stimulate the growth of promising technology companies from proven technology to market introduction. Deep-tech scale-ups are companies that have already tested and proven their technology and now intend to use their products commercially. In this phase, it is difficult to secure financing as these companies often face high development costs, technical complexity, and longer development times before market adoption. The investment is aligned with PMT’s long-term goals as it provides good returns for pension participants and has social value as these companies are working on solutions for major challenges in healthcare, agriculture, energy, and industry.

- Following joint development with pension companies, banks and pension funds, Sweden’s minPension platform can now show whether a member has repayment protection on their occupational pensions and incorporate this into their pension forecast.

As this information was previously missing in some cases, more accurate forecasts are available. In total, there are 13.5 million occupational pension policies on minPension, of which 1.6 million have repayment protection and 11.9 million do not (number of policies, not capital-weighted). minPension pension economist, Dan Adolphson Björck, explained that as people change jobs throughout their working lives, they can have repayment protection for certain parts of their occupational pension but not for others. With this service, it will now be much easier for people to check that they have the right protection for all their occupational pensions. In the future, minPension plans to provide more comprehensive information, making it easy to see what proportion of total occupational pension has repayment protection and what doesn’t.

- Italy’s Fonchim Pension Fund has renewed Payden & Rygel emerging markets bond mandate for €216m.

The renewed mandate is for the fund’s Stability Line. This renewal comes shortly after the award of a new government bond mandate for the National Pension Fund BCC-CRA and the renewal of the active global balanced multi-asset mandate for the Arco Pension Fund. Commenting on the renewal, Payden Global chief executive officer, Antonella Manganelli, said: “We are delighted by the trust the Fonchim Pension Fund has placed in us. Continuing to support the fund in managing the line is a strong recognition of our work and reflects our commitment to providing tailored investment solutions that meet the specific needs of the fund and its members."



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