ITALY – Fopen, the €360m pension scheme of the partly privatised state energy and gas producer Enel, has put out a request for tenders for its new 90% bond portfolio.

The fund has also re-tendered actively managed US equity brief, part of its balanced bond-equity portfolio, which is worth seven percent of the fund’s value.

Fopen, which expects its yearly contribution flow between 2005 and 2007 to be about €65 m, said the value of the new portfolio would depend on how popular it proves with members.

The fund already has four portfolios catering for different risk profiles. It will invest 45% of the new portfolio in EU government bonds with a one- to three-year duration. A further 45% will go into EU government bonds with five- to seven-year duration. Ten percent will go into European equities.

The scheme said that managers who have previously responded to the fund’s requests for tenders are allowed to take part in the selection.

Last month, Fopen completed the first round of manager selection, which has resulted in five specialists being taken on. But the fund had not chosen a manager for its intended actively managed US large-cap equities brief.

Salvatore Martinelli, the president of the scheme, told IPE that Fopen had received “a conspicuous amounts of tenders” for the brief, but the administrative council had decided not to appoint anyone “for different reasons”.

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