Lothian Pension Fund is looking to move from Excel spreadsheets to “fully featured” investment software to manage its equity and bond dealing.

It is doing so to meet regulatory requirements and ensure its investment management is efficient.

The Scottish pension fund invests around £7bn (€7.9bn) of assets, including the assets of two other pension funds administered by the City of Edinburgh Council. It has a regulated investment management company, LPFI Limited, which was granted authorisation from the UK regulator earlier this year.

Currently the equity and bond dealing carried out by its internal portfolio managers is managed using an entirely manual system, according to a tender notice. 

It wants to replace this with “a fully featured trading and portfolio tracking tool”, which it said should help to mitigate risk and improve efficiency. 

Dealing activity amounts to several hundred million pounds sterling in a typical year, the tender notice said. Annual trading volumes for Lothian’s internal portfolios have typically ranged between 1,000 and 2,000 trades a year for internal equity portfolios, and between 100 and 200 trades a year for internal bond portfolios.

The local government scheme also collaborates with other public sector funds, which it said increased complexity and regulatory requirements and therefore the compliance and oversight burden.

Having the software system would ensure LPFI had the internal systems and controls required by the regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority.

France’s Cavamac seeks euro equity managers 

Cavamac, the French state pension institution for insurance professionals, is looking to appoint managers to a framework agreement for around €200m of investment in euro-zone equities.

It wants to select four asset managers, two of which will be designated as stand-by, to manage two collective investment funds dedicated to Cavamac.

It envisages allocating around €200m to the mandates. The framework agreement will be for five years.

The deadline for application is 8 December.

London’s Tower Hamlets tenders for custodian

The pension fund for the east London borough of Tower Hamlets wants to appoint a global custody provider for a three-year contract, extendable for another two years.

The custodian will be required to provide other services such as online reporting performance measurement and passive currency hedging.

The £1.4bn local government pension fund has more than 19,000 members.

Interested parties have until 28 November to apply.

Tower Hamlets Pension Fund is a member of London CIV, the asset pool for the pension funds of 33 London boroughs.

Finnish church fund ESG equity mandate

Kirkon eläkerahasto (KER), the pension fund for the €1.47bn Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, has tendered out a €90m equity mandate with responsible investment requirements. The pension fund has a long-term strategic allocation to equities of 40%.

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