P+ takes a higher level of investment risk

When you invest, the value of your investments can both rise and fall. This uncertainty is known as risk. The higher the level of risk, the greater the fluctuations you can generally expect – both when markets goes up and when they go down.

Over a long term horizon, markets have risen more than they have fallen. This reflects that fact that investors are generally compensated for taking on risk. Historically, taking a higher level of risk has therefore been a sensible choice for long-term investments. And by definition, a pension is a very long-term investment.

As a member of P+, you generally have access to a higher level of investment risk than you do with other pension providers. This means that your expected long-term return is also higher when you save in P+.

You can follow the returns and how P+ performs relative to other pension providers here. As a member, you can also see your personal return in på Min pension.  

Find the risk profile that is right for you

In our latest pension scheme, you can choose between to investment profiles in the form of P+ Life cycle and P+ Sustainable. Within each investment profile, you can choose between three risk levels: high, medium and low risk. 

This allows you to choose the risk profile that matches your risk tolerance and overall financial situation. We have developed an investment guide in Min pension which you must complete if you want to change your risk profile.   

You can learn more about P+ Sustainable and compare it with P+ Life cycle here.

The risk is adjusted to your age

In both P+ Life cycle and P+ Sustainable, we adjust the investment risk according to your age. Regardless of the investment level you choose, your investment risk will be in the higher end of your chosen risk level during the first many years of saving. We then gradually reduce the risk from 15 years before your retirement age.

This means that you can benefit from a higher expected return in the early years, while gaining greater stability in the form of fewer fluctuations as you approach the age when you will be drawing on your savings. 

Diversification creates a resilient portfolio

We diversify our investments across a wide range of different asset classes. For example, we invest in both listed and unlisted equities (private equity), government bonds, corporate bonds, real estate and infrastructure.

Within each asset class, we invest across different risk levels and geographic regions.

This allows us to build a broad and resilient portfolio that can perform well in a wide range of scenarios.

The exact allocation across asset classes depends on your pension scheme. To see how our investments are allocated across different asset classes in your particular pension scheme, you can read more here.

If you want to see the specific equities, corporate bonds, government bonds and Danish properties we invest in, you can find more information here.

A higher expected return through leverage

P+ uses so-called leverage to achieve a sufficiently high level of risk. Leverage means borrowing money to invest more than you actually have available.

If you have more than 15 years until retirement and have chosen P+ Life cycle with high risk, your investments are leveraged by 48 percent as of 31 December 2025. This means that for every DKK 100 you invest, we borrow an additional DKK 48 through the financial markets and invest it alongside your DKK 100. This can give you a higher long-term return because your portfolio is larger, meaning you earn a return on DKK 148 instead of DKK 100.

The result is that, overall, you achieve a higher expected return than if we simply had invested your DKK 100 in equities. And because we diversify the investments across a range of asset classes and types of investments, we make the portfolio more resilient. This means that we can still generate returns from other parts of the portfolio during periods when equities deliver low returns. Even if equity markets fall, the expected loss on our portfolio is no greater than for a portfolio consisting solely of equities – despite the use of leverage.

Overall, we therefore see broad diversification combined with a certain amount of leverage as a strong combination for a long-term investment strategy, providing both resilience and a higher expected return.

If you want to learn more about the risk level and asset allocation for your particular risk profile, you can find more information in F&P+’s (the Danish trade association for insurance companies and pension funds) comparison tool here.

Among the lowest investment costs in the sector

When securities are bought and sold, transaction costs apply. There are also fees for external asset managers and funds when you invest.

As a member-owned pension fund, we place strong focus on keeping the investments costs low.

One way we keep your costs down (among other things) is by passively managing a large share of our listed investments. Passive management means investing broadly across the market rather than using resources to actively select individual investments. This is typically done by following a so-called index that reflects how the market as a whole performs.

When we invest in for example listed equities, we buy broadly into global equity indices such as MSCI World, rather than paying equity managers to try to predict which individual equities will perform best.

When we invest in so-called unlisted investments, such as private equity, hedge funds and infrastructure, we use external asset managers. As a large investor, we can negotiate attractive terms, ensuring that costs in each asset class are well aligned with the expected return.

At the same time, we benefit from the external managers’ expertise in selecting different types of investments. This also helps ensure broad diversification and avoid overly large individual investments.

Overall, the combination of external managers for unlisted investments and a high degree of passive management for listed investments helps ensure that P+ has some of the lowest investment costs in the sector. This means more money for your pension.

You can learn more about the investment costs in P+ here. And here you learn more about how it will affect the size of your savings if you pay higher costs than in P+