EUROPE - The Network Rail CARE Pension Scheme has appointed P-Solve as a fiduciary manager. 

Under the terms of the mandate, the trustees will set minimum and maximum asset class limits and reserve the power to appoint or dismiss investment managers, as advised by P-Solve.

P-Solve - the fiduciary management business of the Punter Southall Group - will determine asset allocation and invest in all appropriate asset classes within the Legal and General Investment Management range of funds.

Paul Kemmer, head of asset solutions at P-Solve, said: "The trustees have instructed us to invest with the aim of maintaining their 100% funding level at an acceptable level of risk. 

"By actively managing the investment decision-making process, we will be able to act fast when we spot opportunities in the market and act to avoid loss through depreciating markets."

Network Rail - seeking "pioneering ways" of transferring the best elements of defined benefit to the defined contribution (DC) framework - has also appointed P-Solve under a separate contract to act as adviser to its £100m DC scheme.

The brief has been to restructure member options, including the creation of a bespoke 'life-stage' fund.

In other news, Italy-based Generali Investments has unveiled two new funds on its SICAV platform - the Tactical Bond Allocation and the GaranT 5.

The Tactical Bond Allocation, managed by Fabio Mandirola, will employ tactical and dynamic positioning to invest in all bond types - mostly euro-denominated - with maturity ranging between one and five years.

Mandirola will actively combine ideas coming from Generali's teams covering macroeconomic research, interest-rate strategies, credit investments, bottom-up research and macroeconomic strategies.

The GaranT 5 is the fifth and final fund in the company's GaranT range. The concept, introduced in 2006, provides investors with a starting price and a maximum price guarantee every five years.

On specific dates every five years, the company guarantees both the first and the highest fund price ever reached at the end of a month.

If the fund price drops, the guarantee remains stable, but if the price rises, the guarantee is automatically adjusted upward.

The newly issued GaranT 5, managed by Daniele Marvulli, will run for an undetermined period and has its first guarantee date on 30 September 2015.

Lastly, Russell Investments has unveiled the Russell Equal Weight indices in response to investor demand for alternatively weighted methods.

The company said its new indices would offer "sector equal weight exposure" - which equally weights each sector within an index and then equally weights securities within each sector - as opposed to traditional equal weight indices, which apply the same weight to each security in the index.

Russell said its strategy would not only increase diversification but also decrease volatility and risk, as the equal weighing method adjusts for economic factor mispricing in the market and "ensures the index's performance is not driven by a few large constituents".

The new series will be based on existing market Russell indices, including the Russell 1000, Russell 2000 and Russell Global indices.
 

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