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    AP1 Fires CEO Johan Magnusson

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    Stockholm (NordSIP) – The Board of Directors of AP1, Sweden’s First National Pension Fund, has announced its decision to dismiss Johan Magnusson from his post as CEO with immediate effect. The Board argued Magnusson’s violation of internal regulations on the holding and trading of financial instruments was the motivation for his dismissal.

    The Board has appointed the Fund’s General Counsel, Teresa Isele, as the Acting CEO. The process of recruiting a new CEO will begin immediately. Teresa Isele has been AP1’s General Counsel since 2016. Prior to her current role she worked at EQT and Vinge. She holds a Swedish law degree and LLM, Stockholm University, German law degree Humboldt University Berlin, diploma English legal studies, King´s College, London.

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    “Johan Magnusson has successfully developed AP1 during his time as CEO, and we on the Board are grateful for his efforts. Since it has now emerged that Mr. Magnusson has broken our internal regulations, he unfortunately no longer has the Board’s confidence. Therefore the Board has agreed unanimously that it is not possible for Mr. Magnusson to continue as CEO of AP1. The Fund is an organisation of highly skilled employees which will now be headed up by Teresa Isele, until a new CEO is appointed,” says Urban Hansson Brusewitz, Chairman of the Board of AP1.

    Born in 1959, Johan Magnusson has been the CEO of AP1 since 2008, according to his AP1 profile. The outgoing CEO is an economist by education and previously worked at ABB Investment Management and as Head of Private Clients at SEB Wealth Management.

    Governance is an important part of the ESG equation for AP1. In its interim financial report for 2019, the company noted the importance of discussing governance at its companies in order to “influence companies in the right direction”.

    On September 4, AP1 provided further information regarding the dismissal of its managing director. “The incident which the board deems to have violated the internal regulations regarding the holding and trading of financial instruments occurred in the spring of this year,” a press release reveals. “AP1 was participating as an anchor investor in an initial public offering. The decision to participate in an initial public offering was made by Chief Executive Officer Johan Magnusson.”

    “Johan Magnusson also subscribed to the offering privately. Following the allocation of shares and completion of the initial public offering, the Chief Executive Officer registered the transaction in the established systems for reporting holdings as established by the fund.”

    “The compliance unit deemed that this violated the regulations that prohibit an employee from utilising their knowledge of the fund’s investments or from trading in financial instruments which AP1 is currently trading in or can shortly be expected to trade in on behalf of the fund, where such knowledge is available. In addition, the regulations prohibit an employee who is entitled to place orders on behalf of the fund from placing orders for themselves at the same time, or immediately before or after. Similarly, the incident violates the fund’s “Values and ethics policy” and “Policy for handling conflicts of interest”.

    “The chair of the fund was made aware of the incident during the summer. At an ordinary board meeting on 30 August, the board decided to dismiss Johan Magnusson with immediate effect.”

     

     

    Filipe Albuquerque
    Filipe Albuquerque
    Filipe is an economist with 8 years of experience in macroeconomic and financial analysis for the Economist Intelligence Unit, the UN World Institute for Development Economic Research, the Stockholm School of Economics and the School of Oriental and African Studies. Filipe holds a MSc in European Political Economy from the LSE and a MSc in Economics from the University of London, where he currently is a PhD candidate.

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