A Swiss pension fund has turned to IPE Quest to search for a manager for a $150m (€134m) blended local and hard currency emerging market sovereign bond mandate.

According to search QN-2327, the investor is considering a blended benchmark of two JP Morgan emerging market bond indices – JPM Emerging Markets Bond Global Diversified index, and JPM Government Bond Emerging Markets Global Diversified index – as the “starting point for any discussions”.

It is not interested in benchmark-agnostic unconstrained strategies.

It has indicated a tracking error bandwidth of 1% to 5%, but would narrow this after discussion with long-listed managers.

It is open to considering both pooled funds or investing via a segregated mandate and will investigate the trade-off between the two after it has long-listed managers.

Interested parties should have at least $2bn in assets under management for this asset class, and $40bn as a firm.

They should state performance gross of fees to 31 May, and have a track record of at least five years, but seven years is preferred.

The investor said: “An important part of the initial questions concern the performance track record for the blend strategy and, separately, also for the local and hard currency sovereign [emerging market debt (EMD)] strategies.”

“The purpose is to identify any overlap between success in local and hard currency EMD strategies and in the blend, in order to obtain an indication of manager skill when allocating between local and hard currency sovereign debt,” the investor added

The manager should be sufficiently staffed to run a blended strategy.

The deadline for applications is 23 June. 

The IPE news team is unable to answer any further questions about IPE Quest, Discovery, or Innovation tender notices to protect the interests of clients conducting the search. To obtain information directly from IPE Quest, please contact Jayna Vishram on +44 (0) 20 3465 9330 or email jayna.vishram@ipe-quest.com.