Denmark's Biggest Pension Fund Just Unveiled a Record 40% Return

(Bloomberg) -- Denmark’s biggest pension fund, ATP, more than doubled its rate of return in the first nine months of this year as most of the asset classes it invested in grew in value.

The upshot was a return of 36.9 billion kroner ($5.5 billion), before costs and taxes, said ATP, which oversees about $130 billion of assets from its headquarters north of Copenhagen. That’s equal to a rate of return of 40%, and compares with a realized average return of 17.6%, it said in a statement on Thursday.

But Chief Executive Officer Bo Foged warned that ATP is unlikely to be able to sustain such levels.

“We will continue our disciplined approach to portfolio construction and risk management to safeguard the basic financial security for members in the longer term, particularly as we anticipate lower investment returns in future years and greater fluctuations,” he said.

The primary contributors to ATP’s record returns were government and mortgage bonds, along with Danish and foreign listed equities. The fund’s free reserves totaled 124 billion kroner.

To contact the reporter on this story: Frances Schwartzkopff in Copenhagen at fschwartzko1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tasneem Hanfi Brögger at tbrogger@bloomberg.net

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