SWEDEN – The SEK130bn (e15bn) Swedish government AP3 fund has issued an RFP for management of an expected $150m (e171m) US corporate bond (investment grade) mandate.

The benchmark for the brief will be the Merrill Lynch Global Large Cap Corporate Index – US$ large cap, and while the mandate will initially be US focused there will be the possibility of extension to a global mandate.

The fund says its strategy is to hire external managers in markets where it believes they can be expected to perform better than in-house managers.
External managers currently run AP3’s entire US and Japanese equity portfolios as well as parts of its European equity portfolio. All are run on an indexed basis.

The fund says it will also outsource a number of active briefs during the course of the year.

Criteria for the manager selection for the bond mandate, AP3 says, will include the professionalism of the asset management team alongside the structure and transparency of the investment process.
Managers should have a track record of past performance returns for the last five years in the asset class as well as a significant operation in the US.
AP3 also notes that the selected manager will also be expected to establish an exchange of knowledge and experience with the fund’s fixed-income team.

Deadline for receipt of applications is May 28, 2001 and information can be supplied by Bengt Hellstrom at AP3 in Stockholm.
e-mail - bengt.hellstrom@ap3.se