UK - The London Borough of Sutton has selected four investment managers as part of a global equities framework agreement it tendered last year, covering as much as £70m (€85m) of the scheme’s total £330m in assets.

The unconstrained active global equity framework agreement, tendered in July last year, was asked to outperform the MSCI All Country World index by at least 3% annually.

A spokesman at the council said no decisions regarding allocation had been made and declined to reveal whether the mandate allocation would result in either of the current equity managers - AllianceBernstein and Newton - losing their mandates, or whether part of the portfolio would simply be diverted.

The four shortlisted managers - BlackRock, Harding Loevner, Sarasin & Partners and Schroder Investment Management - will instead be subject to a “mini competition”, the results of which will be published the middle of next month.

“At that stage, we are going to know how we will allocate the fund,” the spokesman added.

A second framework tender, for an absolute return framework agreement ranging between £25m and £75m, has seen Baillie Gifford and Newton Investment Management shortlisted.

However, unlike the global equity shortlist, the multi-asset mandate targeting “predominantly” long-only strategies will result in an appointment from both Sutton’s local authority scheme and the £430m Richmond upon Thames Pension Fund.

The joint tender is targeting a 3-5 year rolling return in excess of the three-month LIBOR rate, which the councils expect to be in excess of 3% per year.

Meanwhile, the £595m local authority fund for the London Borough of Hillingdon has selected a global custodian following last year’s tender.

At the time, the scheme, which saw assets under management increase by £33m year on year to the end of March, said the tender was published as the previous contract with Northern Trust had run its course.

It has since re-appointed Northern Trust, with the company winning the new five-year contract over two other submissions.