Sweden’s AP7, the SEK970bn (€91.6bn) national pension fund, is re-tendering its huge passive global equity mandates, which make up the bulk of its assets.

The fund, which provides the default option in Sweden’s first-pillar premium pension system of individual accounts, is now inviting bids for what it expects will be between two and four global equity mandates with a total volume of an indicative SEK700bn.

According to the announcement dated Thursday, AP7 said the assets would be managed “in both developed and emerging markets according to a passive index philosophy”.

Ingrid Albinsson, the pension fund’s chief investment officer, told IPE that as this is a re-tender, AP7 was not planning changes to the mandates beforehand. “It all depends of the result of the tender announced,” she said.

The deadline for receipt of tenders is the end of 28 March, AP7 said.

AP7 told IPE it currently works with three external managers on its passive exposure in the equity portfolio – State Street Global Advisors, Northern Trust and BlackRock.

Separately, an institutional investor based in Switzerland has used IPE Quest to search for emerging market fixed income asset managers to invest $300m (€268m) in an active or passive strategy.

According to search QN-2753, the investor is seeking fund managers to invest in a mandate or in an existing third-party fund, tracking the JP Morgan GBI-EM Global Diversified Composite Unhedged USD (JGENVUUG) index.

Interested participants would need to state performance as of 31 December 2021 and should have at least $250m of assets under management (AUM) for the stated asset class and $1bn of total AUM.

The tender notice also stated that a five-year track record is preferred.

The deadline to participate in the search has been set for 15 March at 5pm UK time.

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.

Read the digital edition of IPE’s latest magazine