ITALY – The €500m Fondo Previdenza Mario Negri, the pension fund for directors of the Italian transport, shipping and commercial industries, has put its assets out to tender for managers for a range of equity and fixed income portfolios.

The offer runs until March 18 and the fund expects to shortlist at least five managers that will eventually replace the existing five Italian and international managers whom a spokesman for the fund declined to name. The tender process is part of the fund’s three year investment review.

The fund is looking for managers to take care of portfolios comprising Italian equities, European equities (ex-Italy), US equities, euro-denominated bonds and global bonds. The mandates will run for a period of three years.

The fund has determined an investment strategy whereby the equities portfolios will not exceed 45% of its overall assets, with fixed income accounting for at least 50%.

The industry-wide fund, based in Rome, was actually set up in 1956 and is one the few occupational Italian pension funds to exist before the various reforms to the first and second pillar pensions systems in Italy during the 1990s, which were designed to stimulate the growth of the occupational pension system there.

The fund has over 26,000 contributing members and 3,600 pensioners.

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