BELGIUM - The Flemish municipality Moorslede has tendered a mandate for a new pension fund for its civil servants.

Kris Wydooghe, a spokesman for the council, told IPE this morning: "We want to set up a rainy day fund with a yearly guaranteed return and a bonus, so that we can use this fund to more easily satisfy our future social security contributions."

Wydooghe said the new fund could be compared to a so called ‘silver fund', the reserve fund set up in 2001 by the federal government to bolster first-pillar pensions, which has so far grown to €15.1bn.

He added, however, the fund would remain in the hands of the council.

The council plans to pay a yearly amount of €100,000 for civil servants into the fund and another €15,000 for social workers.

While the mandate will go to the most advantageous tender financially, qualifying applicants are required to have more than €5m of pension assets under management.

The municipality expects bancassurers who specialise in managing assets on this basis to tender.

There is no consultant or adviser involved and tenders or requests to participate should be submitted in Dutch by September 19.