A Swiss pension fund has tendered a mandate via IPE Quest.

According to search QN-2582, the scheme has tendered an emerging market corporate debt mandate, investing $40-60m (€36-54m) in hard currency investment grade bonds.

It will use the JPM CEMBI Broad Diversified IG (JBCDIGIG Index) as a benchmark, with a maximum 4% tracking error.

The fund is searching for one EM manager and it will not consider approaches such as local currency, blended, total return, leveraged products, short duration, emerging EM equities, combined solutions for EMD and DM debt, pure EMD sovereign products, nor products that allocate mor ethan 25% to sub-investment grade corporates.

Managers should have more than $150m in assets under management for the asset class, and more than $1bn in total assets.

Applicants should state performance data to 30 November 2019, gross of fees.

Their track record should be at least three years, but a track record of five years is preferred.

The deadline for applications is 7 January. The scheme will select the more cost-efficient solution.

The IPE news team is unable to answer any further questions about IPE Quest, Discovery, or Innovation tender notices to protect the interests of clients conducting the search. To obtain information directly from IPE Quest, please contact Jayna Vishram on +44 (0) 20 3465 9330 or email jayna.vishram@ipe-quest.com.

Brunel PP awards global high alpha brief

Brunel Pension Partnership, one of the UK’s eight Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) pools, has appointed five managers to run its global high alpha portfolio to which £2.6bn (€3bn) will initially be allocated.  

It awarded mandates to AllianceBernsteiin, Baillie Gifford, Fiera Capital, Harris Associates and Royal London Asset Management. It evaluated 110 strategies as part of its search.

Brunel, which manages around £30bn on behalf of the local government pension funds of Avon, Buckinghamshire, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Somerset, and Wiltshire as well as the Environment Agency pension fund, was looking for a long-term approach, innovation and originality in managers’ processes, and high return expectations of 3% or more over benchmark.

Matt Betts, senior investment officer at Brunel and lead on the manager search, said: “We particularly like dynamic managers who will truly engage with us, and we believe that these managers comprise an effective combination that we hope to see deliver the long-term returns sought by our clients.”

The LGPS pool said it considered global high alpha equities one of its “pivotal” products. 

This article was amended after publication with more information about the Brunel Pension Partnership mandates.