GERMANY - Energy giant Energie Baden-Württemberg (EnBW) has hired Munich investment consultant FondsConsult to assist it with a sweeping revamp of €3.8bn in corporate pension assets.

Sources familiar with EnBW’s plans said the firm has hired FondsConsult to complement incumbent.

As previously reported by IPE, EnBW is cutting the number of investment companies handling its assets – which are book reserves – to four from 16. The companies are known as KAGs in German.

EnBW had wanted the four remaining KAGs to be so-called “master funds”. The objective was to streamline back office administration of its 44 institutional funds to cut costs and boost transparency.

When a German institutional client chooses a master fund, it typically hires an investment consultant to help select and monitor portfolio managers.

It is not clear which consultant will be doing what. Market speculation is that FondsConsult will handle asset manager selection and monitoring.

EnBW and FondsConsult could not be reached for comment. The head of investments at EnBW is Wolfgang Maier, who is overseeing the reorganisation.

FondsConsult formed a joint venture with Switzerland’s Complementa in 2003.

EnBW’s traditional business is supplying power to the German state of Baden-Württemberg. In the past few years, it has emerged as the country’s third-largest energy firm after RWE and E.ON. It has 17,700 employees and annual sales of €9.8bn.

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