France’s ERAFP has awarded an active US-dollar SRI bond mandate to AXA Investment Managers Paris, with a view to investing around €400m over three years via the portfolio.

The French public service additional pension scheme also awarded two stand-by mandates as part of the process, to Natixis Asset Management and CCR Asset Management.

AXA Investment Managers Paris will delegate financial management to AXA Investment Managers Inc.

ERAFP said the two stand-by mandates gave it the option of diversifying risk at a later date by activating them. 

The pension fund launched the call for tenders for management of a US-dollar-denominated bond portfolio back in April this year.

It said the award was part of its policy to broaden its investment universe, as well as in keeping with the values of its SRI charter.

The mandates have an initial term of five years, the pension fund said, adding that it had the option of extending them by three successive one-year periods.

The portfolios will be invested mainly in dollar-denominated bonds from issuers registered in OECD countries, and will be hedged against foreign exchange risk.

ERAFP said the mandate-holders would mainly use a fundamental analysis of issuers and a technical analysis of the bonds to build the portfolios, in order to diversify broadly across sectors.

They will also have to comply to ERAFP’s SRI requirements, it said.

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