ITALY – Previcooper, the €73m supplementary second pillar pension for employees of Italy’s co-operative distribution industry, is looking for asset managers for the ‘Safe’ portfolio of its ‘multicomparto’ structure.

Previcooper - one of the country’s new contractual pension funds – is shifting from a single line of investment to several in a so-called ‘multicomparto’ structure. The official move is expected in July.

The Rome-based scheme is tendering for asset managers to run a portfolio consisting of an equity allocation no higher than 10%, and a roughly 95% bond allocation.

The closing date for tenders is April 27.

Until now, the scheme has run a single balanced portfolio consisting of a 70% allocation to bonds, and a no more than 30% allocation to equities.

The managers include Milan-based SanPaolo IMI Institutional Asset Management, Bologna-based Unipol Assicurazioni and London-based Citigroup Asset Management, which manages global equities excluding Europe.

However, a growth in assets has enabled the scheme to justify the creation of different portfolios. IPE reported in November that a third portfolio, ‘Dynamic’, would have a benchmark of 50% equities and 50% bonds with a maximum equity allocation of 60%.

The scheme – established in 2001 – has approximately 12,000 active members. In 2005, the fund returned around 7.75% compared with a revaluation of TFR – the severance scheme for Italian employees – of 2.65%. The fund has also seen a total return on assets of 31.73% since its inception.

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