(Updates with name of manager) NETHERLANDS - Stichting Flexibel Uittreden Nutsbedrijven, the 348 million-euro fund for the Dutch utility sector, has withdrawn a 175 million-euro balanced mandate from ING Investment Managment and handed it to Barclays Global Investors.

SFN finance director Rob Schippers told IPE the cash was transferred from "a large Dutch institutional manager, because of disappointing historical performances”. According to the scheme’s annual report that was published recently, the manager was ING.

According to 'International Pension Funds and their Advisors', the other incumbent manager is ABP Investments. An ABP spokesman declined to comment and no senior managers at ING Investment Management returned calls or emails.

BGI said the brief consists of global active equities, US and euro active fixed income, active global tactical asset allocation overlay, passive overlay currency hedge and cash.

"Appointing an asset manager to run five different asset classes globally, who has a good investment track records in all five, is always going to be difficult," Schippers was quoted as saying in a BGI release.

"BGI though was able to provide us with the total solution we were looking for - global reach with investment strength in all asset classes."

"BGI is very happy to be working with SFN on this balanced mandate," added Marko van Bergen, head of BGI's Benelux business.

"Pension schemes have always traditionally been invested in equities and bonds, but now we are seeing greater interest in currency and global asset allocation strategies as schemes look to additional asset classes to diversify risk and add return to their investment portfolio."

The mandate is benchmarked against the MSCI World for equities, the Lehman Euro and Lehman USD for fixed income, a cash benchmark for cash and for tactical asset allocation/tactical currency allocation.

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