EUROPE - A corporate pension fund in Germany is seeking to award a $150m (€118m) global emerging market government debt mandate, using IPE-Quest.

According to search QN1243, the asset manager running the mandate will be required to manage the portfolio actively and follow two benchmarks - 50% JPM EMBIG Div (hedged in euro) and 50% JPM GBI-EM G Div.

The fund manager must be familiar with German Master KAGs, and its strategy must include both hard and local currency sovereign debt.

Additionally, it must have a proven track record in emerging market government bonds of at least three years, but a minimum record of five years would be preferred.

In its request, the German corporate pension fund also said the fund manager should have at least $1bn in assets under management for the mandate and $1bn for the firm itself.

Interested parties should state performance, net of fees, to the end of April.

The deadline for applications is 10 July.

In other news, the Fonds de compensation commun au régime general de pension (FDC) has awarded ING Investment Management Europe (ING IM) a €400m global equity mandate.

ING IM will manage the mandate using its sustainable equity strategy, employing the MSCI World Total Return (net) benchmark expressed in US dollars and converted to euros.

The lead portfolio manager will be Hendrik-Jan Boer.

FDC is the Luxembourg state-owned institution that manages the financial reserves of the state pension scheme.

Meanwhile in the UK, the Industry-Wide Coal Staff Superannuation Scheme and Industry-Wide Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme have awarded a joint-mandate to fund manager Muzinich & Co.

Muzinich will manage a single £31m (€38.4m) global high-yield strategy for the two pension funds.

In awarding the mandate to Muzinich, the schemes have also made an allocation away from index-linked gilts.

Jonathan Storer, secretary to both schemes, said Muzinich was chosen for its “intensive”, research-led investment approach that places a high priority on protecting capital, as well as generating investment growth.

“This move is part of a wider strategy review aiming to balance risk in these funds,” he added.

“High-yield potentially provides us with performance similar to equities while allowing us to disinvest equities elsewhere, thereby reducing the schemes’ reliance on equities as the dominant source of expected return.

“The fund in which we chose to invest gave us access to those skills, good liquidity and confidence that we could protect our capital in weak markets and capture capital gains in stronger markets.”

Lastly, in France, La Francaise Asset Management (LFAM) has selected Global Markets Intelligence (GMI) - S&P Capital IQ’s investment advisory arm - to provide quantitative and qualitative investment advice.

Under the agreement, LFAM will use S&P Capital IQ’s expertise in credit analysis - particularly its proprietary Risk-to-Price (R2P) methodology - to help with asset selection and allocation.

R2P focuses mainly on corporate bonds, calculating compensation versus risk to produce a relative measure and rank securities accordingly.
 
LFAM will also be launching a global credit fund, domiciled in Luxembourg, as part of the partnership.

The IPE.com news team is unable to answer any further questions about IPE-Quest tender notices to protect the interests of clients conducting the search. To obtain information directly from IPE-Quest, please contact Jayna Vishram on +44 (0) 20 3465 9330 or email jayna.vishram@ipe-quest.com.