SWITZERLAND - Robusta, the Irish-listed fund vehicle for food firm Nestlé's small to medium sized pension investments, has terminated Mellon Global Investments and JP Morgan Asset Management.

Jean-Pierre Steiner, Nestlé Fonds de Pensions chief executive, today confirmed the pair were replaced after "unsatisfactory performance".

He declined to comment which managers have taken over from Mellon and JP Morgan, who acted as sub investment manager of the Robusta active currency overlay feeder fund.

JP Morgan and Mellon both declined to comment, citing client confidentiality.

In 2006, Robusta tapped AllianceBernstein to take over from Capital International and Dresdner RCM Global Investors Asia for the management of the Robusta global emerging markets fund. (See earlier IPE.com story Nestlé fund axes Capital International)

In another move, Robusta has appointed Michael Owens, a Nestlé UK pension fund investment manager, and Karin Brodbeck, director of retirement investments North America group for Nestlé USA, to the board of the manager.

The Robusta funds were set up in 2001 to pool together pension assets to provide all of the company's pension schemes globally with access to a wide range of asset classes.

Roughly half of the Robusta funds are managed by Nestlé's internal management arm Nestlé Capital Management (NCM), while others are run externally.

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