ITALY - The €103m pension scheme for the employees of the gas and electricity industries is looking for seven asset managers as it changes its investment strategy to cater for its members’ different attitudes to risk.

Fondo Previdenziale Pegaso currently employs AXA Investment Managers Italia SIM, Nextra Investment Management and San Paolo Institutional Asset Management.

Up to now the fund, which has posted a 3.52% return in the first 10 months of 2004, has offered its 20,000 members only one investment option, 70% bonds and 30% equities, the fund’s director, Rina Fabianelli told IPE.

Pegaso has now put out a request for tenders to recruit new asset managers as it has switched to an investment strategy featuring two further options, she explained.

The three existing managers, however, might be among those who respond to the tender.

Pegaso will offer a “conservative” portfolio, 90% bonds and 10% equities and a “dynamic” portfolio, equally split between bonds and equities, as well as the usual 70:30 option and the size of each portfolio will mirror the choice of members, who will be asked to select one of the three options, Fabianelli said.

“It is difficult to forecast now, but if the experience of other pension funds that did the same is anything to go by, the balanced 70% bonds, 30%_equities portfolio could be the biggest” Fabianelli told IPE.

She also said that Pegaso is going to consider European managers with “a presence” in Italy. Communication is expected to take place only in Italian, she added.

Managers can download the questionnaire from the fund’s website, www.fondopegaso or ask for a copy calling + 39 06 85357425. Applications must reach the fund by January 19.

The new appointments could be made as soon as the end of February, Fabianelli said.

In the financial report, in which the fund posted its return for the first 10 months of 2004, Pegaso also stated it would “abstain” from making comments on the pension reform legislation passed in July and published in the official gazette in October.

“Regrettably, due to the difficulty to interpret the reform law we thought it appropriate to abstain from analysing its contents, which are currently provoking contrasting evaluations from various political and economic agents (government, associations, unions)” states the report signed by fund president Mariano Ceccarelli.

Fabianelli explained: “We chose not to add to the mountain of comments.”

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