ATP Gets a Bitter-Suite Shakeup

Denmark’s largest pension fund has some bittersweet management changes: It’s finally getting a permanent chief executive but is losing its chief investment officer.

Kasper Ahrndt Lorenzen will exit the $125.7 billion ATP for PFA Pension ($86.3 billion) in September after 10 years with the plan (he had two stints at ATP, first from 2007 to 2012, then rejoining in 2014). He said has been happy at ATP and hadn’t planned to leave, but then the PFA opportunity came along and he “had to jump at the offer.” The outgoing chief, who will be PFA’s first group managing director and group CIO, had been at his post since 2016.

Lorenzen, who previously worked at PFA from 2004 to 2007, leaves as acting CEO Bo Foged is finally given the keys to the Danish pension fund. Foged, the fund’s former chief financial and chief operating officer, has been the interim CEO since November, when then-chief Christian Hyldahl resigned in the wake of a tax scandal from his days at Nordea bank.

Torben M. Andersen, ATP’s board chair, said Foged earned his CEO stripes in limbo, and the now-official head was appreciative. “I know what I’m letting myself in for, and I was very happy when the board asked the big question,” said Foged.

The fund also promoted Martin Præstegaard to deputy CEO and CFO, effective September 1. Præstegaard is currently the one of the department heads of Denmark’s finance ministry, where he’s worked since 2002.

Andersen said the plan’s first task under the new management is finding Lorenzen’s successor.