FRANCE - The Fonds de Réserve pour les Retraites, the French Pensions Reserve Fund, has 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".

"This global sum may grow as the FRR's resources evolve," the FRR said, adding that the investments are restricted to European large- and mid-cap stocks. The fund said there would be one stand-by mandate.

The minimum size of the mandates will be €50m, with a five-year duration.

The deadline for applications is August 25. It said its manager selection committee would be called on in the process, which should be completed by early 2006.

It said the request for proposal, or RFP, was the third stage in the strategy that the FRR began to implement last year. The first two stages involved getting FRR managers to incorporate the 10 principles of the UN's Global Pact into their analysis of European equities.

And it also called for the implementation of an active policy for voting FRR proxies based on a set of publicly disclosed guidelines.

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