Caisse de Prévoyance du Personnel de l'Etat de Fribourg

Caisse de Prévoyance du Personnel de l'Etat de Fribourg

The Caisse de Prévoyance du Personnel de l'Etat de Fribourg (CPEF) is the public pension fund for the canton’s civil servants, guaranteeing retirement, disability, and death benefits. The State of Fribourg serves as both sponsoring authority and guarantor, with State Councillor Jean-Pierre Siggen chairing the board. The fund’s investment strategy is wholly oriented toward securing long-term liabilities, not generating external returns. CPEF deploys capital across a classic Swiss pension-fund mix: global public equity, global fixed income, direct Swiss real estate, and co-investments in sustainable infrastructure. The direct real estate portfolio — concentrated entirely in Switzerland — holds residential and mixed-use assets including Résidence du Parc in Bulle, Les Arsenaux in Fribourg, and Les Mosaïques in Marin-Epagnier. For infrastructure, CPEF partners with the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) to co-invest in sustainability-focused projects, a mandate widening its reach outside purely domestic brick-and-mortar. The fund also operates through the Swiss institutional-engagement ecosystem, holding memberships in the Ethos Foundation, Swiss Sustainable Finance (since 2024), and the UNEP FI’s 2024 Global Investor Statement. In April 2026 CPEF published its 2025 management report, following a January 2026 announcement crediting insured members with 2.75% interest while consolidating reserves — a signal of steady funded-status management into 2026. Laurent Yerly assumed the director role as of May 2025, succeeding an interim period under Olivier Gumy. The fund’s structural differentiator lies in its local pledge and public-guarantor architecture. Unlike a corporate pension plan that can shift liability, CPEF is bound by cantonal law to the State of Fribourg’s balance sheet, making its asset allocation a direct fiscal-policy lever. Its co-investment posture — pairing in-house Swiss real assets with external partnerships like CDPQ for infrastructure — splits the portfolio into a locally controlled core and a selectively imported satellite, a design few Swiss public funds replicate at this scale.