ATP PEP vice-president joins Industriens Pension

Danish pension fund Industriens Pension has expanded its private investment team with the appointment of Christian Brønden, a former vice-president at Danish private equity fund of funds ATP Private Equity Partners, PEI, Infrastructure Investor's sister publication, has learned. 

Brønden joined Industriens Pension on August 1 as director private investments, the pension funds’ head of equities Henrik Nøhr told PEI.

At ATP PEP, Brønden was vice president in the Copenhagen office since February this year. Prior to that, he spent three years in ATP PEP’s New York office. He joined the group in 2006, according to the firm’s website.

At Industriens Pension, Brønden will select both infrastructure funds and private equity funds, Nøhr said. He will also look at infrastructure co-investment opportunities and direct infrastructure investments, he added. Brønden will join a team of two existing directors, which is led by Nøhr.

Industriens Pension created the new role as it felt it needed to expand the team which oversees its infrastructure and private equity.

“We have been gradually building our alternative exposure for more than 10 years now,” Nøhr said. “We have historically committed between €200 and €300 million a year to private equity. The last couple of years it has been the same with infrastructure. Obviously when you invest €500 to €600 million a year it adds up, and we need a larger team to oversee that going forward.”

Industriens Pension has done a few co-investments over the last three years and did its first direct investment in infrastructure earlier this year, investing €100 million into Butendiek Offshore Wind Park. “As we move forward to do co-investments and [some] direct investments, that is much more resource-demanding than doing fund investments,” he added.

However, the pension fund is not planning to do direct investments in private equity. “We don’t plan to do direct investments in the private equity space. We are very pleased with the fund structure that we have today; we select the funds ourselves and will continue to do that going forward,” he said.

Industriens Pension has €15 billion euros in total assets under management. It currently some 4 percent invested in infrastructure, although its exposure to the asset class is “nearly twice as much” given undrawn commitments, Nøhr said. According to Nøhr, the pension has 7 percent invested in private equity, but again, its actual exposure is actually twice as much as this due to undrawn commitments. 

Industriens Pension invests globally. It writes average ticket sizes of between €40 million and €75 million for infrastructure funds and approximately €25 million for private equity funds and, Nøhr said.