Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – Alecta chief investment officer Hans Sterte has resigned from his role and will leave Sweden’s largest pension fund in mid-November at the end of his four-month notice period, according to Pensionsnyheterna.se. Sterte has served as Alecta’s CIO for the past four and a half years.
“Hans Sterte is leaving Alecta in November,” confirms Alecta’s Head of External Communications and Media Relations. “We have already started the process to recruit a new CIO.” Pensionsnyheterna.se says Sterte’s resignation stems from his desire for a more flexible role and willingness to pursue something different after 20 years in a chief investment officer role at several firms. He has served as the CIO of occupational pension provider Alecta since March 2018. Before Alecta, Sterte also served as the CIO of Skandia Norden for almost 11 years and the CIO of Länsförsäkringar for four and a half years.
“Hans Sterte is leaving Alecta in November. We have already started the process to recruit a new CIO.”
After Hans Sterte joined Alecta as chief investment officer in the first quarter of 2018, the Swedish pension fund has embarked on a five-year plan to increase its allocation to alternative investments to 20 percent of the total portfolio from about eight percent. Under the strategic plan Alecta 2023, Alecta has increased its share of alternative assets, which mainly consist of real assets, to 14.3 percent of the overall investment portfolio of SEK 1.23 trillion at the end of 2021. Alecta oversees total investments worth SEK 1.12 trillion at the mid-point of 2022.
“During last year, we reduced the share of equities in our portfolio by approximately seven percentage points and increased real estate and other alternative investments by roughly the same amount,” Sterte told Dagens Industri earlier this summer. After the steep fall in stock market valuations in the first half of 2022, combined with Alecta’s efforts to boost investments in alternatives, alternatives have reached the 20 percent allocation target spelled out in the Alecta 2021 strategic plan. “The share of alternative investments has now reached approximately 20 percent. We managed to get to where we had aimed much faster than it was supposed to be,” Sterte told Dagens Industri. The portfolio of alternatives is composed of “roughly three-quarters real estate and infrastructure, 1 percent unlisted companies and then a portfolio of leveraged loans.”
