ATP, Hilleroed, Denmark, returned 0.4%, or 418 million Danish kroner ($63.5 million), on its investment portfolio in the three months ended March 31, with negative returns in equities and long-term hedging strategies offset by gains in bonds, alternative investments and commodities.
In a financial update Thursday, the pension fund said assets increased 7.5% over the quarter to 757.8 billion kroner, but fell 1.9% compared with figures as of March 31, 2015.
The investment portfolio returned 17.2% for the full-year 2015.
The fund's bond portfolio gained 2.5 billion kroner in the first quarter, and the update said alternative investments and commodities also were positive. Commodities added 468 million kroner; real estate added 389 million; and infrastructure added 236 million in returns. Equities lost 1 billion kroner in the quarter. The pension fund's long-term hedging strategies against rising inflation also produced a negative return, of 2.1 billion kroner.
“ATP's investment portfolio proved robust in an unstable financial market,” said CEO Carsten Stendevad in a statement accompanying the update. “Declining interest rates and falling inflation are signs that the global economy is still weak, despite ever intensified monetary policy injections. Given a difficult market environment in Q1, we are very pleased to have navigated through this quarter without sustaining losses.”
ATP breaks its investment allocations into four risk factors. As of March 31, it had a 23% exposure to interest rate factors, 47% to equity factors, 11% to an inflation factor and 19% exposed to other risk factors.
