Case Study: PUBLICA Federal Pension Fund The Pension Fund of the Swiss Confederation PUBLICA joins forces with other public sector investors for engagement and exclusion. Information on the organisation Type of organisation
Assets under management (as of 31.12.2016) Approximate asset allocation (as of 31.12.2016)
Pension fund
CHF37.8 billion (open and closed benefit schemes) Open Benefit Schemes CHF bonds
Foreign currency bonds Swiss equities
Global equities Real estate Others
18%
Closed Benefit Schemes 41%
41%
24%
27%
7%
3% 6% 5%
3%
21% 4%
Information on sustainable investment policy Who initiated the drafting of a sustainable investment policy? What was the main motivation for this step?
The initiative came from the Asset Management team, which had already been tracking the topic for a considerable time. In 2014, the Investment Committee and subsequently PUBLICA’s Fund Commission discussed a holistic concept for “responsible investing” in detail.
Generally speaking, a sustainable investment policy is seen as part of a comprehensive risk management strategy designed to reduce financial risks. As a public sector pension fund, PUBLICA is also more exposed to public attention than other pension schemes, which was an extra incentive to develop the theme further and communicate it in a transparent manner. On top of that, there were occasional enquiries from beneficiaries about the sustainability policy. Even though PUBLICA had been actively exercising voting rights for Swiss shares for some years, holding dialogues with critical companies of concern and excluding individual firms, there was no well-documented foundation for responding to such customer queries. Exchanges with international peers underscored the assumption that the topic would become more important in the future. In addition, PUBLICA was seeking a suitable platform to also hold effective dialogues with foreign companies.
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