EUROPE – A European pension fund is screening for investment management firms for two $300m US large-cap enhanced equity mandates via IPE-QUEST.

The search (QN641) says the two briefs will be awarded with expected funding in the fourth quarter of 2006.

The mandates will be awarded to managers meeting the following criteria:
- Stable, dedicated, experienced and incentive driven team
- Philosophy of being style-consistent
- Investment process of either purely quantitative or a combination of quantitative and traditional
- Strong risk management with maximum ex-ante tracking error of 2.5% for long only strategies and maximum 5% for long strategies with some shorting flexibility
- Attention to and responsibility for capacity
- History of consistent excess performance with a meaningful amount of assets in composite (Managers submitting answers for a long strategy with some shorting flexibility can show back test performance data as long as a “comparable” real long only strategy‚s performance data also can be provided.)
- Willingness to accept performance based fees and related structures

The mandates will not be awarded to purely traditional managers.

The closing date is July 20.