KOSOVO – The Kosovo Pensions Savings Trust (KPST) has appointed Schroders and ECM as fixed income managers.

The KPST is an independent, not-for-profit financial institution that is responsible for administering Kosovo’s mandatory pension savings system. It was established in 2001 by the United Nations, which administers Kosovo, as part of the reconstruction of the territory following an international military intervention that drove out Serbian forces in 1999.

“We wanted to further diversify the asset allocation and decided that we wanted to add some absolute return fixed income exposure,” Neil McPherson, head of European business development at Standard Life Investments who is chairman of the KPST’s trustee board, told IPE. “We did a review using Bfinance and after a lengthy search process we appointed Schroders and ECM.”

“They are taking some 40% of the asset allocation and it is split equally between them,” McPherson added.

The KPST has placed 20.6% of its portfolio in the Schroders SISF euro-hedged strategic bond and divided a further 20.6% equally between ECM’s diversified European credit and European credit funds.

The rest of its portfolio is invested in ABN Amro’s IGF euro fund, which manages 8.8% of its assets, and Vanguard’s euro-hedged global index fund.

The KPST had assets under management at end-May of €169.6m. For 2005 it posted a return of 8.7%. It has some 205,000 members.

Topics