EUROPE - The £750m (€590m) Wandsworth Borough Council pension fund, which last month awarded a mandate for global custodian to Northern Trust, has granted UBS, Rogge Global Partners and RCM three further mandates worth £400m to £600m.

The tender notice, first put out in 2008, aimed to award four distinct mandates - one for active global equities excluding the UK, one for active UK bonds, one for passive multi-asset management and one for active equities.

UBS was awarded the mandate for passive multi-asset, originally valued between £200m and £300m, while RCM has been asked to manage active global equities, and Rogge Global Partners took charge of an active UK bond mandate.

Both RCM and Rogge's mandates were valued at £100m to £150m when first put out to tender.

In other news, the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea pension fund, which according to preliminary figures had £465m of assets under management at the end of March, is advertising two absolute return mandates worth £130m in total.

The pension fund asked that only a limited exposure to hedge funds or hedge fund of funds exist through underlying pooled vehicles and said it would not consider hedge funds or hedge fund of funds directly.

The tender notice added that the fund would not allow leverage or gearing in the portfolio, although this again would be permissible if limited exposure existed through pooled funds.

Interested parties can request more information on the open-ended contracts from Hymans Robertson until 7 October.

At the end of March, Baillie Gifford Global Equities managed more than a third of the Local Government Pension Scheme's assets, with Alliance Bernstein Global Equities managing a further 30% and M&G Bonds 10%.

The remaining assets were divided among Adams Street Private Equity, ING Property and Legal & General.

Finally, ING Investment Management has been awarded a €2bn mandate from the Dutch province Gelderland.

The assets are a result of Gelderland's sale of its stake in energy company NUON,  which the province will slowly reduce over the next few years until ING manages assets totalling €4bn.

While an exact management strategy has not been decided upon, it is expected the funds will be invested in AAA-rated government bonds.