RESAVER, the recently launched pan-European pension project for researchers, is tendering for investment managers for the cross-border IORP it is setting up, according to an EU tender notice.

The tender is being conducted using the competitive dialogue process, and is being managed by Aon Belgium, which won a four-year contract to provide support services to the project at the beginning of this year.

RESAVER, or the Retirement Savings Vehicle for European Research Institutions, is now inviting expressions of interest from companies interested in tendering to provide pension fund investment services to “a second-pillar occupational DC pension multi-country IORP registered in Belgium”. 

The contract is proposed to last for five years, with the possibility of extending it to eight years.

On the basis of the responses to the pre-qualification questionnaires, RESAVER will shortlist at least three applicants to take part in the dialogue stage.

Aon said it was not looking for creative solutions at this stage but was at the dialogue stage instead.

To achieve economies of scale, Aon said it was intended that RESAVER Insurance would offer the same investment funds to insurance participants as were offered to IORP participants.

It said both the RESAVER IORP and RESAVER Insurance vehicles would have to offer “a comprehensive range of investment funds (…) to support the project multi-country, multi-vehicle, multi-currency specificities”.

Since the project is starting from scratch, the investment solution must be suitable for any size of assets, it said, which will involve keeping the organisation simple at the beginning, with only a few investment options.

At the same time, the organisation will have to be ready to change in the future, when assets under management and number of participants have grown.

RESAVER is also tendering for administration services, as well as custody and audit services.

The deadline for requests to participate is 2 November 2015 at 5pm, and decisions on the contracts to be awarded are to be made by 28 January 2016.

The costs of setting up the IORP are being covered by the European Commission. 

Aon has said it will take 15 years for the fund to finance itself.

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