DENMARK – The alternative investment arm of Danish pension fund administrator PKA is more than doubling its team as the fund boosts its involvement in the asset class, according to the subsidiary's managing partner partner.
PKA Alternative Investment Partners (PKA AIP) was set up a year ago by PKA to manage the administrator's legacy portfolio of more than DKK20bn (€2.7bn) in assets across 81 funds in private equity, infrastructure and agriculture and timber.
It expects the 2012 mandate of DKK12bn to be allocated before the end of 2014.
Anders Dalhoff, current head of the subsidiary, told IPE: "We are still expanding the team with two new people joining us in April and another in the summer, so we'll be six professionals by then."
A further team member might then be recruited early next year, he said. By midsummer, the partnership will be a team of six, having doubled in size from the end of March.
Brian Schleimann Nordlund is joining PKA AIP in April as investment director, alongside Ulrik Pallisø Bornø as investment manager.
Schleimann Nordlund joins from a role as engagement partner at Nordic strategy consultancy Quartz + Co, while Pallisø Bornø previously worked at Nordic utility DONG as head of investment analysis before he decided to join to PKA AIP.
Dalhoff has been acting managing partner at PKA AIP since the departure of Jens Henrik Staugaard Johansen at the end of March.
Staugaard Johansen and PKA AIP are believed to have parted company over a difference of views. He had been managing partner since the partnership began.
Dalhoff could not say whether he would become PKA AIP's next managing partner, but said the firm was not currently looking for another partner.
"PKA's commitment to the alternative space has been growing since our inception last year," he said. "That's partially fuelled by the increasing appetite for infrastructure investment as a substitute for fixed income.
"And clearly doing those direct infrastructure investments requires a different kind of bandwidth from a typical fund selection mandate," he said.
Business is active right now, Dalhoff said, with PKA AIP continuing to see a very strong deal flow, both on the fund side and the direct side.
"Last year we sat down and shaped the new strategy for PKA and we are executing that strategy now," he said.
