GERMANY - The €800m German corporate pension scheme of multinational Bosch is planning to make its first allocations to alternative investments.

The Pensionsfonds, which are offered to employees in the Bosch-Vorsorge-Plan (Bosch Provision Plan), is in the midst of building up a Masterfonds (master fund) for alternative investments such as commodities, private equity and absolute return strategies.

The fund, which has yet to invest in alternatives, will allocate around 10% of its assets to the new asset class for the purposes of diversification.

Bosch has two other master funds at present, one for equities, and one for fixed income, both focusing strongly on European investments.

Bernhard Wiesner, senior vice president corporate pensions and related benefits at Bosch, told delegates at the Pension Fund Investment World Germany conference in Frankfurt today the pension fund will take 5% from its equity investments and the other 5% from its fixed income portfolio to invest in the new master fund.

Wiesner told IPE magazine in June Bosch is also planning a long-term project to bring together the European pension funds of the automobile, industrial and electrical technology multinational.

On the sidelines of the conference today, Wiesner added no concrete plans have been made yet but said Bosch would soon start to look more closely at the Benelux and a possible cooperation between its German and Austrian pension offerings.

Wiesner stressed again today Bosch wants to bring its pension funds globally together within one administration platform first, and one legal entity via a step-by-step approach, though the company is not currently considering an asset pooling model or establishing a single manager selection platform as Siemens did earlier this year.

If you have any comments you would like to add to this or any other story, contact Carolyn Bandel on +44 (0)20 7261 4622 or email carolyn.bandel@ipe.com

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