Jämförelsestudie mellan AP-fondernas Sverigeportföljer och storbankernas Sverigefonder 2002-2006
The first four AP-funds have a well-diversified Swedish portfolio, which is managed in similar way as the largest Swedish bank funds. Up until today, there has not been any comparable study that focuses specifically on this part of the AP-funds. Our aim is two-folded; First we will look at how well the AP-funds have managed their Swedish assets compared with Swedish funds of the four largest banks in Sweden during 2002-2006. This will be done by looking at some important key ratios and both absolute and active return. Secondly we will present a descriptive analysis of the management structure within the respective organisations, to be able to draw conclusions regarding the possible deviations in investment return. Our analysis shows us that the return deviations is low between the AP-funds and the bank funds as groups, although within the groups there are some clear differences in both management and returns. We found evidence that a more decentralized organisation structure with clear allocation of responsibility creates more premises for the portfolio managers to generate a larger fund return. Organisations that have primary focus on stock-picking, rather than sector selection in the investment process have also shown larger returns. The lack of bonus-systems within the AP-funds has not affected the overall results significantly. Still there is evidence that the managers of the bank funds have taken larger risk in their daily work due to these bonus-systems which are directly linked to the fund return.