Europe’s largest pension fund, the ABP fund for Dutch civil servants with assets of over $143bn in 1996, has selected part of Grupo Santander, the major Spanish financial group, to manage a Latin American portfolio.

The mandate for an undisclosed amount was awarded to BSN Gestion de Patrimonios, one of the group’s asset management units. In Madrid, Eduardo Suarez of the group says the assignment came as a result of two years of analysis undertaken by ABP Investments as part of their procedure for choosing external managers.

This involved a thorough review of BSN, says Suarez. They looked at our resources, our investment guidelines and process, as well as our internal controls and the personnel we have committed to the area.”

Several countries in Latin America were visited by ABP Investments, to look at the investment potential. “They also took the opportunity of seeing at first hand the presence of Santander in Latin America and the advantages of being part of group of 90 people devoted to asset management, most of them in place in Latin America,” says Suarez.

BSN is in course of investing the portfolio. The mandate is to outperform the benchmark, which is the IFC Latin American index, says Suarez. Grupo Santander had assets of $161bn at mid-point of 1997.”