Scottish Widows Investment Management (SWIM) has been appointed by the based e7.8bn PKA pension fund, Denmark’s second largest scheme for 150,000 employees in the country’s public, social and health sectors, to manage a (e)100m euroland equities portfolio.
Nina Movine, head of asset allocation and risk management at the fund, says: “We looked at about 10 managers and after a very thorough selection process chose SWIM because we felt they had a strong European investment team.”
Brussels based consultant Pragma advised on the selection.
Allan McKenzie, head of institutional sales at SWIM, says: “This is our first success in Denmark. We are in discussion with several other companies in Northern Europe and signs are encouraging that we will succeed in attracting further clients this year.”
SWIM has also picked up the mandate to manage European equities ex UK money for Northern Trust Global Investments (NTGI) multi-manager European Fund.The wins add to a dramatic rise in new European business which saw European assets under management grow from £217m in 1997 to £971m in 1998.
Tony Earnshaw, head of multi-manager products at NTGI, comments: “We wanted to consciously move away from our previous value approach with Marathon to SWIM’s growth at reasonable price style. The decision was partly made on quality and partly on SWIM’s fit with the structure from a shortlist of nine managers.
NTGI also switched another of its three European equities briefs from Credit Suisse to SG asset management
Hugh Wheelan