Fondoposte is the supplementary pension fund for employees of postal service provider Poste Italiane and certain subsidiaries. It manages assets externally via two sub-funds, balanced and guaranteed, that are built on different levels of risk. In recent years, it has increased diversification by raising the allocation to illiquid investments. It is further diversifying its assets by increasing the private markets component and introducing exposure to infrastructure.

During 2023, a significant activity was changing its investment policy. It carried out a review to assess whether the policy needed updating because of changed financial and economic circumstances of its members. This revealed an upsurge in younger members as well as evolving needs of older members [this insertion is necessary because of the second bullet below], highlighting the need to add new pension offerings to complement the existing sub-funds:

• An accumulation sub-fund for younger people, with a predominantly equity exposure and higher risk profile than currently offered
• An exit sub-fund with exclusive exposure to short and medium-term bonds of one to five years, protecting the assets of those closest to retirement

The next step is to introduce life-cycle paths. The fund also fine-tuned the balanced sub-fund’s strategic asset allocation and revised its management model. The new model has the twin objectives of reducing the risk associated with any individual manager, and simplifying comparisons between managers, making it easier to replace non-performing managers.

Fondoposte’s other main activity was continuing to implement its sustainable investment policy. It amended the management mandate for the guaranteed sub-fund to promote environmental and social characteristics under Article 8 of the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR). Periodic monitoring and alerting devices were set up for principal adverse impact indicators. Overall, the fund carries out ESG monitoring of investments, creating a watchlist of issuers that is checked periodically and subject to discussion with financial managers. At 31 December 2023, both the guaranteed and balanced sub-funds had outperformed their respective benchmarks.