OREANDA-NEWS. December 03, 2013. Kristjan Tamla, who used to manage Swedbank’s Baltic Investment Centre, will become the manager of Swedbank Investeerimisfondid AS on 1 January.

Kristjan Tamla says that it’s a pleasure for him to start managing a company that has been demonstrating strong performance results. The performance of Swedbank’s pension funds has been one of the best on the market in the last three years. This position must be maintained. One of his goals in the new position will be the development of the pension funds’ principles when investing in Estonia and clear communication of these principles to the market participants.

“Swedbank’s pension funds have already invested considerably more into Estonia compared to the proportional size of the Estonian financial market in the global context. In my opinion, we should increase the emphasis on communicating this investment policy clearly to the public and explain the role of domestic economy and investments from the angle of the multi-pillar pension system. This means that we have to explain openly and clearly which instruments are suitable for pension fund portfolios in terms of their size, liquidity, structure and risk, and which ones are unsuitable,” said Tamla.

“The topic of pensions has recently received a lot of attention from the public, which means that I’m even more pleased about the fact that the funds of the largest market participant will be managed by a person with extremely diverse investment experience, who has already been involved in fund management in both Estonia and Sweden. I believe that his extensive experience in this field will help us increase the reliability of our pension funds,” said Priit Perens, the CEO of Swedbank Estonia.

”Being market leader in managing savings is a big responsibility. I am convinced that Kristjan is the right person for the job with not only the required competence, but also solid experience in local as well as international capital markets and investments. His person and leadership is a welcome addition to our asset management team,“ said Fredrik Wilkens, Head of Baltics at Swedbank Robur in Sweden.

Kristjan Tamla has 15 years of experience in the financial sector and the Estonian pension system – he has held various positions in the Swedbank Group, the Bank of Estonia and the Ministry of Finance. He graduated (cum laude) from the Department of Economics of the Tallinn University of Technology and received his master’s degree (cum laude) in economics from the University of Exeter in England.

Swedbank Robur offers savings products for private individuals and institutional clients. The products range from investment funds to life insurance, pension products and discretionary investment management. Approximate 130 investment funds are open for investments covering all major regions, sectors and asset classes. Altogether,

Swedbank Robur serves approximately 3.1 million customers in Sweden and 1.1 million in the Baltic region, for whom it manages approximately EUR 70 billion in assets.