GLOBAL – The £430m (€515m) pension fund for the Royal Borough of Kingston-upon-Thames has chosen Aon Hewitt to provide investment consulting services, appointing the consultancy after they were selected in a national framework agreement.

Under the agreement, Aon Hewitt will be carrying out a review of the fund's investment strategy as well as providing tailored training for the panel members.

Aon Hewitt was appointed through a 2011 framework agreement designed by the London Borough of Croydon, which aims to deliver greater savings and efficiency in the public sector through sharing services and undertaking joint procurement exercises wherever possible.

Jeremy Randall, head of finance, strategy and accounting at the pension fund said: "The framework is offering local authorities both greater efficiency and the opportunity to maintain control of costs for their pension schemes."

The London Borough of Croydon set up Business Process Improvement Consultancy Framework Agreements for use across Croydon Council and other local authorities and public sector organisations.

The frameworks aim to deliver value for money and resource efficiencies as opposed to Authorities tendering for provision of these services separately.

Croydon was recently one of the seven authorities involved in a similar national framework agreement for investment consultancy services.

Meanwhile, Shropshire Council’s £1.1bn (€1.29bn) local authority fund is looking to appoint one or more investment managers to run its global equity portfolio from September this year.

The local authority said the initial mandate for any individual manager would be £88m (€103m), though this could vary and can be run on either a segregated or pooled basis. MFS were running the pension fund’s global equities portfolio, which stood at £106.9m as at the end of March 2012, a 6% increase on the year prior.

Further information can be attained from Aon Hewitt before 1 March. A deadline of 7 March has been set for expressions of interest, with final bids accepted from selected parties by no later than 13 May.

Finally, managers have been asked to apply for a $30m (€22.3m) real estate securities mandate being tendered by a German investor using IPE-Quest.

The German family office conducting search QN1275 is looking for a manager to oversee a listed securities portfolio based around US and Canadian real estate covering core properties, as well as value-added and opportunistic investments.

The actively managed portfolio would be awarded to a manager overseeing at least $500m (€675m) in similar assets and $1bn (€1.3bn) in overall assets across the company.

Managers should have a minimum of three years' experience with assets in the specified sectors, although a five-year track record would be preferred.

The family office said it had yet to decide on a performance benchmark and would confirm its tracking error guidelines at a later date.

Interested parties have until 6 February to apply, stating performance, net of fees, to the end of December.

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.