UK - Lancashire County Pension Fund has put a third if its £4.3bn (€4.9bn) portfolio out to tender, looking to appoint as many as 10 managers to oversee its global equity portfolio.

In the £1.5bn tender, the local authority scheme says 3-10 managers would be selected to oversee mandates, ranging in size between £100m and £500m.

However, it stressed that the initial appointments would likely see as many as five managers selected, with assets under management varying on each award, allowing managers to pursue more aggressive or focused investment strategies.

The mandate said: "The manager will have the freedom to invest where they see the best opportunities.

"However, portfolios should have less than 25% in small caps and less than 50% in emerging markets or in off-benchmark stocks."

Managers will be expected to outperform the MSCI World index by 2.5% over three years, with no tracking error restrictions specified by Lancashire.

Newton Investment Management currently manages a £638m global equity mandate for the scheme, with a further £500m UK equity mandate overseen by JP Morgan Asset Management.

Legal & General Investment Management meanwhile manages a £1bn index-tracking, multi-asset portfolio.

It is understood that while the above two pure equity mandates do not amount to the £1.5bn tender, assets in a transitional mandate will be used - with Mellon Transition Management in charge of a £700m portfolio, according to the most recent annual report.

In other news, the Environment Agency pension fund has successfully appointed seven consultancies as part of a framework agreement put out to tender by the fund and a number of other local authority schemes in the south west of England.

The tender, published last October, saw the Environment Agency scheme join with the South West Region Local Government Pension Scheme Administering Authority - which encompasses the Avon Pension Fund, as well as schemes for Dorset, Cornwall, Gloucester and Wiltshire - to appoint an actuarial and investment consultant.

A number of consultancies have now been selected, with the largest awards going to Hymans Robertson, Mercer and Barnett Waddingham, respectively - each chosen for seven-year contracts worth £2.5m.

Aon Hewitt was further chosen for a seven-year contract worth £500,000, while BFinance and JLT Investment Consulting both won £300,000 contracts - with the final, £200,000 award going to PwC.