To stand on the leading edge of a global investment trend needs foresight. But to be one of the first ones there takes even more.
Long before policymakers were advocating a very different kind of 'post-pandemic' society, Sweden's Länsförsäkringar was investing in projects to deliver that vision.
Länsförsäkringar AB's non-life premiums may been largely local - 60% in 2019 - but its investing lens and conscience remain truly global.
If you wish to work for European insurers, it told asset managers from outside the region in late 2019, then improve your game on environmental, social and governance (ESG) game.
Practising what it preached, it had sold Brazilian miner Vale in early 2019 for not providing operational safety assurances, alleged human rights breaches, and poor emissions.
Being tough did not hurt returns, either. .
Then came COVID-19. Cometh the hour, cometh the CIO – Anna Ӧster – with SEK 300m from Länsförsäkringar's Liv, Sak and Fondliv units, invested in an International Financial Corporation bond to support healthcare, education, and SMEs in developing countries' communities hit by the coronavirus.
Further social bond investments followed to combat COVID's effects, including in Nordic countries.
Länsförsäkringar built its green, social and other sustainable bonds allocations by SEK 3bn ($306m) in Q1 2020 alone.
At the same time, it made exclusion criteria stricter for gambling, oil, and gas companies.
By November 2020, 271 companies sat on its barred list for fossil fuels and unconventional oil/gas extraction.
Ӧster and her team also engaged on ESG at the level of European policy, hoping to benefit Nordic woodlands, by telling the European Commission late last year to include sustainable forestry in the EU Taxonomy.
Under her guidance, Länsförsäkringar's investment team has shown its willingness to engage with investee companies, with managers seeking European GA work and top-level politicians, not just to cover the group's underwriting liabilities, but to help form the future we will inhabit.
