KPST adds Nordea and Kleinwort Benson to the list of investment funds

Governing Board of KPST decided to add to the list of managers of open-end vehicles, through which pension assets are invested, Nordea and Kleinwort Benson Investors. With respect to Nordea, investments were made through two of its funds: 1) €30 million through the Nordea-1 Global Stable Equity Unhedged fund, which trades in stocks; and 2) €40 million through the Nordea-1 Stable Return Fund X EUR, which trades in multi-assets. Whereas, €40 million invested through Kleinwort Benson were through the International Dividend Plus Developed Equity Fund, which trades in dividend paying stocks of corporations from the developed countries.

These investments came as a result of changes made by the Governing Board of KPST to the pension assets’ investment strategy at the end of last year and the selection of investment funds through an international bidding process during the first half of this year. Furthermore, it is expected that the agreements with other managers of investment funds that were provisionally selected through the abovementioned bidding process, are finalised during the third quarter. Total new investments are expected to exceed €200 million.

It should be said that Nordea is the largest financial group in Northern Europe, headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. Nordea started its operations in 1830, and at the end of 2013 it had €630 billion under management and roughly 30 thousand employees. Since 1992 Nordea has entered the market of asset management, and since 2004 has provided management of absolute return products.

On the other hand, Kleinwort Benson Investors is a manager of institutional assets, headquartered in Dublin, Ireland and is member of Kleinwort Benson Group. This enterprise managed institutional investors’ assets since 1980, and currently provides specialised strategies on public and corporate pension schemes. At the end of 2013 Kleinwort Benson Investors had €5.4 billion under management.