| dc.description.abstract | Topic: Management within municipal pension funds.
This paper focuses on some of the largest municipal pension funds in Norway. We have looked at how municipal pension funds choose to manage their capital, and if risky investments pay off in the form of higher value-adjusted return II. Fall of 2016, The Financial Supervisory Authority of Norway suggested a new proposal for an absolute capital requirement for pension funds. The proposal has created a major debate between Pension Fund Association, The Financial Supervisory Authority of Norway and the finance industry in general. The debate is focussed on whether the capital requirements should be adjusted to ensure the solvency of the pension funds, or whether the new capital requirement will lead to a lower return on investments for the pension funds and higher costs for employers. Based on the research, we formulated a hypothesis that the proportion invested in equities influences the value-adjusted return II to the municipal pension funds. From the hypothesis, we defined the issue: “How does the proportion invested in equities affect the value-adjusted return II to the municipal pension funds?”. In order to answer the problem, we have chosen to use both quantitative- and qualitative methods.
Our results indicate that the proportion invested in equities, does not affect value-adjusted return II to the same extent as we first assumed. We have seen that the pension funds manage their portfolio similarly with the largest proportion being invested in less risky assets such as bonds. Furthermore, we found that there were only some of the municipal pension funds that managed to beat the market indices with active strategy. However, since active strategy is cost-driven and its higher administrative cost must be considered, the strategy will not pay off to the same extent. | nb_NO |
