Kommunal Landspensjonskasse, Oslo, posted a 3.1% return on its investments for the quarter ended March 31.
An update Tuesday by the Norwegian pension company's said its gain was 2.2 billion Norwegian kroner ($254 million) in the first quarter. Total group's assets rose 3.5% to 699 billion Norwegian kroner from Dec. 31 and grew 7.5% year-over-year.
For the three months ended March 31, the largest asset class return was in equity, which gained 8.9% for the quarter vs. -3.5% for the first quarter of 2018. The equity allocation stood at 179 billion Norwegian kroner.
The 307.3 billion Norwegian kroner bond investments returned 3% for the quarter compared with -1.2% in the first quarter of 2018.
An allocation to bonds held to maturity added 0.9% and stood at 29.9 billion kroner as of March 31. In the year-earlier quarter bonds held to maturity delivered an identical return.
Loans to municipalities added 0.6% in the quarter and stood at 98 billion kroner, compared with a 0.5% return in the same quarter a year earlier.
Real estate, at 67 billion kroner, gained 1.3% in the quarter compared with 1% in the first quarter of 2018. Other investments added 0.5% and stood at 16.9 billion kroner in the quarter up from returning 0.3% a year earlier.
Noting the fund's "strong" first-quarter results, KLP CEO Sverre Thornes said in a news release, "the return on our customers' pension funds is well above the return we have guaranteed, and our costs are low."
He added: "We are finding that low costs and a strong financial position allow us, as a mutual owned company, to pursue our ambition to reduce prices and hence costs to our customers within public-sector occupational pensions."
