The E16bn French Pensions Reserve Fund has awarded its first E10bn in mandates, covering four ‘lots’- large-cap euro equities, small and mid-cap euro equities, large-cap US equities and bonds.
The executive board of the Fonds de Réserve pour les Retraites has selected 16 tenders presented by asset managers. “The four lots’ total indicative amount is E10bn out of E16bn,” the fund says.
The decision sees French asset managers such as Crédit Lyonnais, AXA, BNP Paribas and CDC IXIS win money. Non-French managers include Vanguard Investments, Barclays Global Investors, HSBC AM and Robeco Institutional Asset Management.
“The FRR has just achieved an important step in its manager selection process,” the fund said in a statement. “It appreciates the high standard of the tenders received from the asset management industry, in Europe or outside Europe.”
The fund added that the selection for the remaining eight lots, comprising 22 mandates for the remaining E6bn “is in progress” and would be achieved by the end of the second quarter 2004.
The FRR says it reserves the right “to make inflows, if necessary, to the mandate entrusted to the stand by manager of such lot”.
Lot 1: Large-cap euro zone passive equities. Indicative size: E1bn for three years:
o Barclays Global Investors
o Crédit Lyonnais Asset Management
o Vanguard Investments
Lot 2: Small and mid-cap euro zone active equities. Indicative size: E200m for five years.
o AXA Investment Managers
o Crédit Lyonnais Asset Management
o Société Générale Asset Management
Stand-by mandate: HSBC Asset
Management
Lot 4: Large-cap passive US equities. Indicative size: E640m for three years.
o Vanguard Investments
Standby-mandate: Barclays Global Investors
Lot 10: Active government and non-government investment grade bonds in euros. Indicative size: E960m for four years.
o AGF Asset Management
o AXA Investment Managers
o BNP Paribas Asset Management
o CDC IXIS Asset Management
o HSBC Asset Management
oRobeco Institutional AM
Stand-by mandate: Crédit Agricole Asset Management.