ITALY – The graphics, paperworks and publishing industry sector-wide pension fund, Fondo Pensione Byblos, has put out tenders for a depository bank and administration and accounting manager. The offer will run until the end of this month and a decision is expected in March. The fund hopes to become fully operational sometime thereafter.

The Rome-based fund, created in 1998, currently has 30,000 active members, though potentially its membership could be six times as much, since the industries it covers employ 180,000.

Though no formal fund size has been set, Byblos anticipates contributions totalling €21m in its first year of operations, €40m in its second and €53m by its third.

Reports that the fund is also looking for managers to take care of its assets are not true, says a spokesman for the fund. “We are still very young and we haven’t reached the stage yet where we can accurately predict the size of the fund, nor are we ready to search for financial managers. The offer we have tendered is to find a depositary bank and a company to take care of the fund’s administration and accounting.”