The L6,000bn (e3.12bn) assets of Milan-based financial group Cariplo, the stable of Italian investment managers Fondigest, have been outsourced to 10 investment managers in an enormous exercise in specialist asset allocation by the company.
Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs have both scooped global equity portfolios, with Pimco-NatWest and JP Morgan picking up separate US bond mandates. And a raft of eurobond briefs will be managed by French managers Credit Agricole and Paribas and Italian managers Zeta Fondi, Credit, Gestiras and INA.
Paulo Ranuzzi, head of Fondigest, which advised on the manager search, says: The board of Cariplo decided to diversify the portfolio as much as possible and consequently came out with 10 asset lots which we decided to give to 10 different asset managers. "The managers themselves were selected for the relevant specialist skills needed to satisfy such diversity and follow a wide range of benchmarks. We will decide soon exactly how the portfolios will be split, although we expect them to be on a more or less even basis of around L600bn each.""