Lancashire County Council Pension Fund, Preston, England, is looking for several transition managers to form a panel to potentially oversee changes to its money managers, said an announcement filed with European procurement website Tenders Electronic Daily.
The £5 billion ($8.1 billion) pension fund said in the announcement that it is looking to appoint the managers via a framework agreement. Over the next four years, the pension fund plans to review the investment arrangements for the pension fund, and “as a result expects to make significant changes to its strategic asset allocation, and also potentially its stable of investment managers.”
According to an unaudited draft statement of accounts for the year ended March 31, 64% of the pension fund is managed by external money managers, with the remainder managed in-house. Bank of New York Mellon is listed as a manager for £82.5 million of credit and fixed-income transitions, and Nomura is cited for £1.9 million of equities transitions.
With a framework agreement in place, the pension fund will conduct a “lowest price mini-competition exercise between providers whenever it requires transition management services,” the notice said.
The notice said individual transitions are expected to range from £50 million to £5 billion in market value of underlying assets.
The framework agreement contract will begin in February 2015, lasting two years, with an option to extend for a further two years.
More information is available on TED. Proposals are due Oct. 21.
Executives at the pension fund did not respond to requests for comment by press time.