Fondtorgsnamnden, the Swedish Fund Selection Agency, Stockholm, hired five managers to run a total of 51 billion Swedish kronor ($4.8 billion) in passive global equities and four managers to run 16 billion kronor in passive European equities, according to news releases.
The global equity managers hired and their strategies are Handelsbanken (developed markets and global index), Mercer (passive sustainable global equity), Skandia (global exposure), Storebrand (global index) and Swedbank (access global).
FTN said said about 300,000 pension savers have holdings in the strategies affected by these hires. FTN added that the managers hired “have undergone extensive control and are of high quality,” while the average fee for the funds in the global equity category have dropped to 0.046% from 0.143%.
The European equity managers hired and their strategies are Handelsbanken (Europe index), Skandia (Europe exposure), Storebrand (Europe), and Swedbank (access Europe).
“The procurement result shows that we have a process that ensures a high level of target fulfillment," said Erik Fransson, executive director of FTN, in the news release. "The significant reduction in the fee level, with lower fees for all savers, combined with the increase in quality is positively impacting pension savers.”
The FTN search for the global index strategies was conducted at the same time as the search for the European index strategies. This allowed for parts of the procurement process to be coordinated, such as evaluation and finalist interviews. For the global search, 11 prospective managers were interviewed between August and September.
Founded in 2022 following a law passed by the Swedish government, FTN is a government authority with the mandate to procure, monitor and do quality assurance on the funds in the Swedish premium pension system, which had about €200 billion ($220.7 billion) in assets as of Dec. 31.