UK - The £1.5bn (€1.6bn) Norfolk Pension Fund is tendering for investment managers for several global equity mandates worth as much as £400,000.

The fund is seeking to establish a framework agreement with several companies to last four years, with the funds using the FTSE All World or the MCSI All Countries World indices as a benchmark.

Returns of 2%-4% are targeted each year over a three to five-year period, while the council expects the managers awarded the contract to pay for the independent measurement of each mandate.

It further reserves the right to adjust the size of the mandate, which it says could lie anywhere between £100,000 and £400,000. 

According to the fund's 2008-09 annual report, Fidelity Pensions Management was its largest asset manager, caring for 20% of all assets, followed by Capital International and Aviva Investors, with 17% and 13%, respectively.

Four-fifths of all assets were invested in the UK market, with the remaining 20% invested in overseas fixed interest securities, overseas index linked securities, equities and a marginal amount deposited as cash.

Submissions should be made by 17 September, while additional information can be obtained through fund actuary and investment advisor Hymans Robertson.

A second local government pension scheme (LGPS), the Wandsworth Borough Pension Fund, recently awarded Northern Trust a three-year contract to be its global custodian.

The LGPS has £650m in assets under management and said Northern Trust made the most economically advantageous tender in terms of cost estimates, with the team's experience and trade-monitoring capabilities being ranked as equally important to the award in second pace.

While the contract will initially run for three years starting at the beginning of September, the council retains the option of renewing it for a second three-year period when it expires.

Finally, the European Central Bank has announced Deloitte in Germany as its new scheme actuary.

The contract, which runs until 2013, will see the company conduct annual scheme evaluations, as well as a triennial evaluation of the scheme and its liabilities.

Staff at the bank last year threatened to strike over changes made to the defined benefit scheme, which saw contribution rates increase by 1.5%.

Topics