AkademikerPension dropped State Street Global Advisors from a 3.1 billion Danish kroner ($429 million) allocation after an ESG assessment.
The Gentofte, Denmark-based pension fund, which has a total about 145 billion kroner in assets, engaged conducted an ESG assessment in the fourth quarter, evaluating the results at the beginning of 2025, CIO Anders Schelde said. “After careful analysis and thorough consideration, it became clear that SSGA no longer (fit) the strategy and didn’t live up to our standards.”
The pension fund has maintained a “constructive and open dialogue with SSGA and greatly appreciate their transparency and willingness to engage,” Schelde said. The pension fund engaged with the $4.7 trillion asset manager following SSGA's decision to leave Climate Action 100+, a global investor-led initiative that works to promote action on climate change among big greenhouse gas emitters. SSGA withdrew from the group early in 2024.
“Throughout this process, SSGA has consistently provided updates, we have met several times, and we have received written responses to our inquiries,” Schelde said.
The assets will be reinvested in one of the pension fund’s internal global equity portfolios into which assets are fed from other terminated external mandates, Schelde said.
"As shared by AkademikerPension, the decision to reduce the use of external managers was prompted by an exercise to increase insourcing capabilities," an SSGA spokesperson said in an email. "As a manager with approximately $50 billion in AUM for Nordic institutional investors, a 35% year-over-year increase in AUM, State Street Global Advisors looks forward to continued discussions with MPIM on future opportunities." MPIM is the in-house investment unit of the pension fund.
Some pension funds have been thinking hard about their ongoing relationships with managers that have cut ties with climate change-related coalitions.
The news from AkademikerPension follows a decision by Crawley, England-based defined contribution master trust The People’s Pension, which said Feb. 27 it was shifting £28 billion ($34.7 billion) in equity and fixed-income investments away from SSGA. The £32 billion master trust highlighted in its announcement that the allocations would be managed in line with responsible investment policies.
The changes follow a review of the master trust’s responsible investment policy, which features stronger expectations of its asset managers. That new policy, published in April last year, set out minimum requirements and ongoing expectations for asset managers, including a commitment to net zero and adequate stewardship resourcing. The trustee warned that relationships would be reviewed if those requirements were not met.
The policy also underlined The People’s Pension’s commitment to industrywide groups including Climate Action 100+.
