FRANCE – The French reserve fund, the Fonds de Reserve pour les Retraites, is looking to select consultants to help it select asset managers for socially responsible investment and private equity mandates.

“The FRR is initiating two procedures whose aim is to select financial consultants to assist the Fund in designing and managing two separate requests for proposals processes (RFPs) through which it will select asset managers specialized in (i) socially responsible investment (SRI) and (ii) private equity funds,” the €19.2bn said.

There will be a one-round bidding process. The exact dates of the RFPs have not yet been determined.

“The financial consultants selected will enable the FRR to complete the preliminary technical work that is already well under way.”

Applications and proposals must be submitted by May 3.

Last month it emerged that JP Morgan Investment Management, one of the fund managers lined up by the FRR for stand-by mandates, had withdrawn and given up the chance to run euro-zone large-cap and US mid-cap equities.