Pensionskasse Stadt Zürich

Pensionskasse Stadt Zürich

Pensionskasse Stadt Zürich (PKZH) was established in 1913 to manage retirement assets for the City of Zurich's administration and affiliated entities. Today it covers roughly 150 institutions, including schools and cultural organizations, serving around 41,000 active insured members and 21,000 pensioners. The fund is led by CEO Helga Portmann, with Jürg Tobler as CIO and Deputy CEO. Tobler oversees a portfolio spanning real estate, infrastructure, private equity, venture capital, insurance-linked securities (ILS), and secondaries. Direct co-investments feature prominently — the fund holds a residential portfolio in Zurich at Gutstrasse and Birmensdorferstrasse, a land parcel in Boniswil, Aargau, and a renewable energy portfolio with BKW Group that includes wind farms in France, Italy, and Norway, plus the Cotovio solar park in Portugal. ILS exposure adds a differentiated, insurance-referent return stream uncommon among Swiss public pension funds. The fund is an active participant in Swiss institutional networks, holding memberships in ASIP, SVVK-ASIR, Swiss Sustainable Finance, and SECA. It was among the first Swiss pension funds to set a CO2 reduction target. May 2024: The fund publicly reinforced its commitment to direct alternatives co-investments alongside BKW Group in European renewable infrastructure (per Altss research). PKZH's architecture differs materially from peers that use only fund-of-funds for alternatives: it runs a direct co-investment vehicle for infrastructure and carries an explicit ILS allocation on its own books. Those internal capabilities reduce fee drag in an era when Swiss public plans face pressure to maintain full funding despite low bond yields.