GLOBAL – An Asian foundation is seeking a manager to invest as much as $100m (€75m) into Chinese equity, using IPE-Quest.
According to search QN1298, the foundation is hoping to invest $50m-100m in Chinese A-shares, managed both actively and passively.
The active mandate should focus on bottom-up analysis of quality companies, allowing the investors to draw on the manager’s Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (QFII) status.
Performance will be benchmarked against the MSCI China A or the CSI 300 index, with companies expected to have at least three years of experience in the field, managing equivalent mandates worth $1bn or more.
Additionally, the company should be overseeing $20bn of assets in total.
Interested companies should apply by 7 May, citing their gross of fees performance to the end of March, although performance figures through the end of December 2012 will also be accepted where more recent data is unavailable.
In other news, France’s €36.6bn Fonds de Réserve pour les Retraites (FRR) is looking to appoint managers to a French small-cap equity mandate and a European small/mid-cap mandate.
The FRR, which launched its request for proposals at the end of last week, split the mandate into two lots.
While the first one will seek exposure to European small-cap equities for an amount of €500m, the second will target French small to mid-cap equities for a total of €300m.
However, the FRR stressed that those amounts were only indicative and could vary over time.
The European mid-cap equity mandate will focus on listed companies included in the FTSE Developed Europe Small Cap index, as well as any listed companies located in the 16 countries covered by the index.
The second lot will target listed companies included in the FTSE All-Cap France, as well as companies having their headquarters in France.
For both lots, asset managers will have to outperform the FTSE Developed Europe Small Cap index and the FTSE All-Cap France over a three-year period.
They will also need to present tracking error guidelines of 10% maximum.
The French reserve fund expects the asset managers selected to run an active management strategy for both mandates, which will be awarded for five years.
The FRR nonetheless stressed it may extend the length of the mandates once.
The closing date for applications is 17 May at noon.
Earlier this year, the FRR selected AXA Investment Managers, Financière de l’Echiquier and Kempen Capital Management to run the €200m small-cap mandate as part of its environmental, social and governance (ESG) strategy.
Finally, the Northern Ireland Local Government Officers’ Superannuation Committee (NILGOSC) has appointed Wellington Management to a bond mandate worth around 10% of assets.
The local authority fund for the region’s employees first tendered the mandate in March last year and said it had received expressions of interest from 19 managers.
In the initial mandate, the fund said it would look to appoint a manager able to offer a range of bond strategies, including absolute return, global bonds and high-yield bonds.
Wellington Management has been asked to invest £350m (€409m) of assets on behalf of NILGOSC.
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.
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