UK - The Environment Agency says it has awarded a total of £440m (€649m) in currency mandates to Informed Portfolio Management.

The agency - the UK's environment watchdog- said IPM has won its combined passive (£400m) and active (£40m) currency management mandate for the £1.4bn Active Pension Fund. The Agency was advised by Mercer Investment Consulting.

Howard Pearce, head of pension fund management, said: "The appointment of IPM follows on naturally from our appointment of our new fund managers during 2005 and 2006 and concludes the implementation of our new investment strategy and our fund manager line up."
 
According the agency's new 2005/2006 annual report, it made an overall return in the year of +22.8% (+0.8% above benchmark). The three-year annualised rate of return is +19.3%.  The solvency of the fund was estimated to be 98% at March 31, 2006.

Seven managers exceeded their performance benchmarks and four beat their performance targets.

Sarasin Chiswell, the Agency's specialist SRI fund manager, who manage 8% or over £100m of the Active Fund assets, and mainly invests in EU based companies, produced the best performance (+9% above their benchmark index) after the first year.

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