On 2 September, Första AP-fonden (AP1) announced that the board had decided to dismiss Johan Magnusson from his role as Chief Executive Officer due to his violation of the internal regulations of the fund. The fund has now concluded its assessment of the need for confidentiality in accordance with the Swedish Public Access to Information and Secrecy Act in relation to the information, and has decided to publish further details.
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. 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.
Contact:
Sara Christensen, Head of Communications AP1, phone +46 (0)70-968 12 50, sara.christensen@ap1.se