Investment Strategy

The Carlsberg Foundation’s target asset allocation is 57.5 per cent liquid assets in the form of listed shares (37.5 per cent), Danish mortgage bonds (15 per cent) and other bonds (5 per cent), and 42.5 per cent illiquid assets in the form of private debt (17.5 per cent), private equity (12.5 per cent), real estate funds (10 per cent) and infrastructure funds (2.5 per cent), as illustrated below:

As it will take time to achieve the target asset allocation (especially the strategic weights for illiquid assets), the foundation currently has a larger share of its investments in global equities and bonds than is intended in the longer term.

The Carlsberg Foundation’s investment policy and investment strategy entail a high degree of diversification:

• Investments in shares are made primarily through global ESG-screened index funds, which means in practice that investments are spread across several thousand listed companies.
• Bond investments are typically in various types of bond fund, which also entails a relatively wide spread of investments.
• Investments in private debt, private equity, real estate funds and infrastructure funds are also made through funds which have numerous underlying investments.

The asset managers who select and execute the underlying investments are chosen following an in-depth analysis by the foundation’s investment advisers.

The Carlsberg Foundation aims to achieve a long-term risk-adjusted return partly by minimising investment costs, for example by keeping the foundation’s own resources at low levels, by avoiding performance fee agreements, and by investing in pools or funds through asset managers.

Historical performance

The return on the foundation’s securities holdings and liquid assets was DKK 1,410 million in 2024 and DKK 992 million in 2023. This breaks down into unrealised gains of DKK 1,345 million in 2024 and DKK 958 million in 2023, realised income of DKK 75 million in 2024 and DKK 37 million in 2023, and realised and unrealised costs of DKK 10 million in 2024 and DKK 3 million in 2023.

The return in 2024 was the highest in the foundation’s history and exceeded the year’s revenue in the form of dividends from Carlsberg A/S.

The Carlsberg Foundation believes that investing in companies that have set ESG targets and report on their progress on ESG issues – including respecting international principles for social responsibility – will be more sustainable and result in healthier long-term value creation and a higher risk-adjusted return, as well as having social benefits.

The foundation’s investment policy is therefore also designed to take account of sustainability considerations, and states that the investment portfolio is to be invested in companies that disclose ESG-related information and work with one or more of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

The Carlsberg Foundation expects its chosen asset management partners to be signatories to the UN’s six Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) or have other external validation of their ESG commitment. 

This means that the foundation wishes its investments to be made in funds that integrate sustainability risks and take account of the most significant negative sustainability impacts in their investments. For funds covered by the EU’s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), this means Article 9 funds and Article 8 funds.

The criteria applied when selecting and monitoring the partners who advise the Carlsberg Foundation and invest on its behalf include expertise in ESG, the sustainable transition and active ownership.

When it comes to investing in shares, the Carlsberg Foundation acknowledges that defining an ethical investment policy is a complex and ever-evolving process.

Since the foundation wishes to have broad diversification of risk, with equity investments spread across several thousand companies, it has decided to adopt the exclusion lists applied by the globally recognised financial experts MSCI, Northern Trust Corporation and Nordea.

The foundation has also chosen to invest in equity funds where the managers have the right resources and skills to monitor and ensure compliance with its requirements. The Carlsberg Foundation uses advisers to carry out analyses and assessments before selecting asset managers.

The asset manager's role

The Carlsberg Foundation’s advisers assist in selecting asset managers to execute and monitor its investments. These managers must meet certain criteria for skills and resources and be signatories to the UN PRI or equivalent principles.

The foundation has an ongoing dialogue with its advisers on how to ensure that the chosen asset managers comply with its requirements, and on how these asset managers should respond when individual companies are found to fall short of the desired standards.

In some cases, the asset managers will engage with the company’s management based on their policies on active ownership. In other cases, they may divest from the company.

It is therefore the foundation’s asset managers who handle the day-to-day monitoring of investments, based on the criteria prioritised by the foundation when selecting the managers. 

The asset managers’ ongoing screening processes result in investments being added and removed, and the foundation’s advisers engage in dialogue with the asset managers on their work on monitoring and control.

The asset managers in turn engage in dialogue with a wide range of listed companies (either directly or via recognised proxy advisers). There is therefore an ongoing turnover in the foundation’s underlying investments, and an ongoing dialogue with asset managers and the management of the companies covered by the foundation’s equity fund investments. 

Where the global ESG-screened equity funds in which the Carlsberg Foundation invests have investments in companies that do not yet comply with the Paris Agreement, our asset managers will engage with these companies to encourage them to do so, or potentially divest from them.