GERMANY - The German province of Saxony-Anhalt has chosen six asset managers for its pension fund for civil servants, which it will start to fund again from next year.

Like many other German provinces, Saxony-Anhalt has started to save money in a pension fund for civil servants, which so far collected €207m.

After having suspended additional contributions to the fund in the wake of the crisis, the regional government decided at the end of the summer to start additional funding again from 2012.

It will pay €20m annually on top of the regular pension insurance contributions made by the authorities for their staff.

Before the summer, the government had planned to postpone this decision for another year to 2013.

Meanwhile, the scheme has selected managers for the assets in the pension fund, as well as other assets in the province, which will all be pooled.

Universal Investment was chosen as overall investment company (KAG), while France-based Amundi will manage government bonds.

Nord LB Capital Management was awarded a corporates mandate, and convertibles will be managed by EMCore.

The equity mandate was split between DB Advisors and Berenberg Bank.
BNP Paribas Security Services was confirmed as global custodian.

The sizes of the mandates - both for assets in the Pensionsfonds and others - will be made available on the European Tender Database (TED) this week.

For now, a spokesman for the finance ministry in Saxony-Anhalt confirmed to IPE that the fund would invest 66% of its assets in government bonds, 12% in equities, 10% in convertibles and 12% in corporates.

In June last year, the public auditing board in Saxony-Anhalt criticised the regional government for taking "unnecessary risk" for having an equity allocation of 12%.