UK - The £1.5bn Greater Gwent Pension Fund is tendering mandates for a Japanese equity portfolio, as well as an actively managed diversified alternatives portfolio, worth a combined £100m.

For both mandates, the scheme would prefer pooled options, but it will also consider segregated mandates, with the £100m in assets divided up equally between the two portfolios.

It also asks that only managers with track records of more than two years apply for the positions.

The actively managed Japanese equity portfolio should seek to outperform the MSCI Japan, Topix or FTSE Japan indices by 2-4% per annum net of fees.

Torfaen County Borough Council, which administers the scheme, has ruled out any investment in funds of hedge funds, 130/30 funds or long/short funds and would like to award the mandate to a single manager.

For its actively managed diversified alternatives portfolio, the authority is looking to outperform LIBOR by 3-6% net of fees, with a corresponding range of volatility accepted. Funds of hedge funds have again been excluded.

Torfaen adds: "The portfolio should be actively managed, either through a single, directly managed portfolio, a fund of external managers or a combination of the two."

Applications should be made by 1 August, with additional information available from consultancy bfinance.

The local government pension fund (LGPS) has in the past invested smaller sums in Japanese equity, first managed by Barings and later by BlackRock following the termination of the Barings contract.

In other news, the £1bn local government scheme for Fife Council has appointed Standard Life Investments and Baillie Gifford to jointly manage a £100m multi-asset absolute return mandate.

Finally, the £662m pension scheme for Haringey Council has announced it is to change to a purely passive management approach for equity and bonds, resulting in a tender of between £200m and £650m.

According to its most recent annual report, the scheme invests 5.5% in UK equities, with a further 12.9% invested in the overseas stock market.

Its pooled investment portfolio accounts for its largest allocation at 37.2%, while fixed income and index-lined securities account for 2.5% and 2.6%, respectively.

Of the remaining investments, 33.6% were in open-ended investment companies, with 5.5% in cash.