FRANCE - The Fonds de Réserve pour les Retraites, the French Pensions Reserve Fund, made a return of 7.63% on its invested mandates in the first half of the year.

The fund has grown to €23.4bn, it said in a release. Invested mandates have returned 16.76% since June 28 2004.

Not all the fund’s assets are yet invested, so total asset performance in the first half, which includes cash, was 4.35% (7.46% since June 2004).

Money market instruments still account for 34.6%, or €8.1bn, of total assets.

Equities accounted for 56.4% of the portfolio, or €13.2bn, with the bulk (42.2%) in European stocks. The €2.1bn bonds portfolio accounts for 9% of the total.

“The FRR activates portfolios on the basis of financial market conditions and trends,” the FRR said in a release.

In June the FRR said it had started to select managers for up to six socially responsible investing mandates worth a total of €600m.

The fund said that the move means it is already the "the top-ranking European institutional investor in SRI assets".