News in brief: 19 November 2021

- A record number of Danes are voluntarily making extra contributions to their pensions, new figures from Sampension have revealed.

The provider found that in the first nine months of 2021, around 9,200 of its customers paid extra into their pension savings, which represents an 83 per cent increase on the same period in 2016 and is the highest level ever recorded. Younger savers in particular were more likely to have saved extra into their pension, with the number of savers under 36 who made extra contributions increasing by 20 per cent, the largest increase among all age groups surveyed.

- Danish pension fund PFA has announced plans to invest DKK 100m in the Danish private equity fund, Blue Equity.

The move is expected to allow the pension scheme to take advantage of the “untapped potential” in Danish small- and medium-sized companies, as well as deliver a “good risk-adjusted return” to customers. “At PFA, we want to make Danish capital available and support the growth layer in the Danish business community. Therefore, we have chosen to invest again in Danish Blue Equity, which we at PFA have helped to establish, and which we are confident can deliver a good risk-adjusted return to our customers,” PFA group investment director, Kasper A. Lorenzen, commented.

- Denmark's P+ has committed to reducing the carbon footprint of its investment portfolio by 30 per cent by 2025.

The provider highlighted this as a “significant reduction” to aim for, explaining that it will achieve this by tightening climate requirements for both asset managers and the companies it invests in. P+ has also pledged to earmark 15 per cent of total assets for climate-friendly investments by 2030, and to maintain stricter active ownership with the 20 largest CO2 emitters in the portfolio in an effort to influence them in a “greener direction”.

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