UK – Aberdeen Asset Management has been retained as manager of the £4.8bn (€5.7bn) Tyne & Wear pension fund’s UK property investments, beating applications from nearly 30 other companies.

The framework agreement for the £360m in assets was first tendered in late April as a way to test the market, the fund’s investment manager Ian Bainbridge told IPE at the time.

Of 29 applications, five were selected to sit within the framework agreement alongside Aberdeen – the local authority’s property manager for more than two decades.

LaSalle and Cordea Savills Investment Management were appointed to the framework, as were Rockspring Property Investment Managers and Cushman & Wakefield Investors.

In addition to its UK property exposure, Tyne & Wear also invests £87m in global property assets and £82m in infrastructure.

In other news, the £584m local authority fund for London’s Barking & Dagenham council is looking to invest £50m in a global credit portfolio.

According to its tender, bfinance would help oversee the process to appoint an investment manager to an actively managed global credit portfolio – with a pooled vehicle cited as a preferred option, but a segregated account also permissible.

Managers have until 15 November to apply for the mandate.

Finally, the Environment Agency Pension Fund EAPF) has published further details of its proposed £250m allocation to real assets.

According to a statement made by the fund, it envisages that the £250m-300m mandate would allocate the majority of assets to a sustainable property fund, with the remainder divided among infrastructure, forestry projects and farmland.

Head of the EAPF Howard Pearce said it placed a “high priority” on long-term, sustainable investment.

“We currently have circa £250m, or 13%, of our fund invested in the ‘green’ economy, and this new mandate will take us towards our target of 25% by 2015,” he said.

Pearce added that he would ideally like to target eco-friendly buildings in brownfield over greenfield developments and water cleansing and conservation projects.

Areas of environmental risk, such as coal power, roads and air travel, will be excluded, as well as projects that contribute to deforestation.

As part of the mandate, the agency hopes to allocate £90m to sustainable property, £70m to infrastructure and £35m to farmland and forestry, respectively.

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