UK – Greater Manchester Pension Fund, one of the UK's largest local authority funds, is seeking to establish a framework agreement for a £600m (€696m) equity mandate.

The £11.1bn scheme said managers should aim to outperform the MSCI All Countries World index by 2-4% over a three-year period, and that it would consider segregated and pooled solutions for the actively managed equity mandate.

The fund further asked that any applicants have an established, five-year track record, managing at least £3.5bn in assets.

"Single or multiple mandates may be awarded concurrently or consecutively within the expected framework life of four years," it added.

Greater Manchester's administering authority Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council said it hoped at least three managers would apply for the framework agreement by 7 August.

Applicants can request a pre-qualification questionnaire for the agreement from consultant Hymans Robertson's Glasgow office.

In other news, Carmarthenshire County Council is seeking managers to oversee almost one-fifth of the Dyfed local authority fund's assets in a re-tendering that could see BlackRock lose part of its mandate.

The local authority said it would appoint one or more managers to a long-only global equity mandate worth as much as £300m.

Up to 12 applicants will be shortlisted following the 5 August deadline, with AllenbridgeEpic assisting the fund.

According to its most recent annual report to the end of March 2012, BlackRock was solely responsible for the management of the majority of its assets, with Schroders and Partners Group overseeing two pan-European property mandates worth a combined £97m at the time.

BlackRock's management returned 6.4% for the 2011-12 financial year, with benchmark allocation of one-third of its £1.3bn mandate invested in overseas equity, 22% in fixed income, 1% in cash and the remaining 43.5% in UK equity.

Meanwhile, Grontmij Capital Consultants is conducting a search for value-added or opportunistic property funds targeting European and US real estate, using IPE-Quest.

According to search QN 1315, the client on behalf of whom the Dutch consultancy is conducting the search would like to invest  between €10m-€20m in American or European property, excluding the Central and Eastern European region.

The consultancy added that the funds should preferably be equity driven, and have a "moderate" target loan-to-valuation ratio.

It did not specify a minimum track record or fund size for any vehicles being put forward for consideration, nor did it suggest a benchmark against which the success of an investment would be measured.

Interested fund managers should contact IPE-Quest by 12 July to apply.

Grontmij has recently conducted a number of searches, last month seeking non-listed industrial investment opportunities in Europe. It also sought input on any residential funds of interest for two Dutch pension funds.

Finally, the €14bn pension fund for French civil servants (ERAFP), has appointed three managers to a 10-year, European real estate framework agreement.

The fund said that only AXA Real Estate Investment Managers would be seeded with capital, likely up to €350m over the next three years, but that agreements had also been reached with CBRE Global Investors France and LaSalle Investment Management.

AXA Real Estate will manage a portfolio of unlisted property located in European countries part of the OECD, the fund added, with investments principally focused on office and retail units.

As announced in the initial tender last year, when ERAFP said it would likely provide €310m in capital over the first three years, the manager will have the discretion to also consider investment in residential and logistics within the region.

The IPE.com news team is unable to answer any further questions about IPE-Quest tender notices to protect the interests of clients conducting the search. To obtain information directly from IPE-Quest, please contact Jayna Vishram on +44 (0) 20 3465 9330 or email jayna.vishram@ipe-quest.com.