EUROPE – Robeco and Quonium Asset Management have each won a low-volatility global equity mandate for the UK's £1.8bn (€2.2bn) Environment Agency pension fund

The Dutch and German asset managers were awarded the five-year contracts in a tender process that attracted 10 offers.

In its initial tender, the Environment Agency had said it was looking for managers to take on portfolios with an estimated value of £50m-200m.

The portfolios were to be managed with the aim of exceeding the long-term return from global equities, with not more than 80% of their volatility.

Management could be active, quantitative or passive, it said at the time, noting it would be particularly interested in environmental, social and governance (ESG) conscious strategies.

"Within ESG-aware strategies, our preference is for an integrated process of equity selection using financial and ESG criteria rather than negative screening," the fund said at the time.

Meanwhile, four asset managers were appointed to a framework agreement with the £2bn East Sussex County Council to manage global equity portfolios for its pension fund.

Baillie Gifford, Longview Partners, Sarasin & Partners and Wellington Management International were all successful in the tender, beating out competition from eight other managers.

The investment objective, as stated in the initial tender, was substantial outperformance of – provisionally – the MSCI AC World index, with a guideline target of 2.5-4% per annum.

The size of the mandate was expected to be £75m-125m, it said, adding that single or multiple mandates might be awarded concurrently or consecutively within the four-year framework period.

The fund has also chosen State Street Global Advisors to manage a passive fundamental equity mandate from East Sussex County Council for its pension fund.

The council received 17 offers to manage the mandate, expected to be up to £200m in size.

The fund said it was looking for a firm to manage a mandate tracking a non market-cap weighted, rules-based global equity index.

Constituent weightings were to be determined by fundamental measures of valuation.

In other news, the Northern Ireland Local Government Officers' Superannuation Committee has appointed Aon Hewitt to provide actuarial advice to its £4bn local authority fund. 

Finally, the £1bn Bombardier Transportation UK pension fund has appointed Mercer to provide actuarial services.

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