ATP CEO resigns

Carsten Stendevad, chief executive of ATP, Denmark’s largest pension fund, is resigning to return to the US for family reasons, according to a statement, PERE's sister publication, Private Funds Management, reported Friday.

The pension fund’s board of supervisors has initiated a search process and has appointed search firm AMROP to assist. This process is expected to be completed by year-end and Stendevad will assist in the transition period, ATP said.

Standevad, formerly a managing director in Citi’s investment bank in New York, took up the CEO position at ATP in April 2013. Since then he has led several initiatives, including revising the ATP pension product and redesigning ATP’s overall investment strategy to include a new approach to portfolio construction, strengthened in-house investment capabilities and an increased focus on direct investments, the fund said.

As well as delivering “strong investment returns,” Standevad has overseen “significant growth” in ATP’s welfare benefit processing business, while “substantially” reducing administrative costs.

“Carsten commands great respect among ATP’s stakeholders, because of the strong financial results he has delivered, the organizational improvements he has undertaken, and the way he has positioned ATP in the Danish society,” Jorgen Sondergaard, chairman of ATP’s board of supervisors, said in the statement. “Carsten is handing over an ATP in great shape to his successor.”

With more than $120 billion in assets, ATP is one of Europe’s largest pension plans with five million members. In January, ATP partnered with AXA Investment Managers – Real Assets to acquire two City of London hotels from Chelsfield Partners for £180 million ($258 million; €240 million, the Danish fund's first overseas hospitality investment, PERE previously reported.

The firm's latest real estate fund allocation was a DKK600 million ($90 million; €80.6 million) earmark to Norden VIII, the 2015 value-added fund from Ejendomsselskabet Norden, according to PERE research.

ATP also announced in June that chief investment officer Henrik Gade Jepsen is leaving to join Danske Bank. The new CIO will be 44-year-old Kasper Arndt Lorenzen, who until now has been head of liquid markets in ATP’s investment division.