FRANCE - France’s new civil service additional pensions scheme has launched a tender for fund managers of euro-zone socially responsible investing equities.

ERAFP (Establissement de retraite additionnelle de la function publique) is the organisation launched in 2005 to manage the supplementary pension scheme for 4.6m public servants.

It has chosen to place its entire initial €1.5bn of assets in European socially responsible investments. Total assets for the scheme are expected to amount to €3bn euros by the end of 2006.

There will be three mandates of €50m-€400m each with a standby mandate as well. Each mandate must be wholly invested in a FCP, or Fonds Commun de Placement.

ERAFP follows the €26.6bn reserve fund, the Fonds de Réserve pour les Retraites, in allocating to SRI. In April the FRR awarded five asset managers a total of €600m in SRI mandates.

Candidates wishing to participate in the selection can find the appropriate documents at www.achatpublic.com and there is also a link to this on ERAFP’s website www.erafp.fr. Tenders or requests to participate should be drawn up in French.

The scheme is looking for asset managers who combine transparency with performance and compliance with SRI principles.

The deadline to apply is August 3.

ERAFP said that in 2007 it would launch new tenders for other categories of assets.

According to SRI research group Novethic, the total amount of socially responsible investments held by French residents has now reached 8.8 billion euros, of which 58% are held by institutional investors.

ERAFP was created by the pensions reform act of 21 August 2003.

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