BP Amoco PLC, London, appointed ABN AMRO Asset Management, ING Investment Management and State Street Global Advisors as preferred providers for BP Amoco’s continental European pension plans.
Gary Hibbard, international pensions coordinator at BP Amoco, said the managers will provide benchmark information to local pension managers and will help create a pan-European investment structure for the pension plans. Some may manage money for the local pension fund, but that decision is up to the local executives, Mr. Hibbard said.
Naming the preferred providers is the culmination of an 18-month review of 14 international investment management groups; this was part of BP Amoco’s expansion of local pension plans’ investment exposure following the conversion to the euro, which lifted currency restrictions that required pension plans to invest only in domestic markets. Officials also want to effect economies of scale by arranging fees based on the company’s total pension assets of 500 million euros ($476 million) in Europe and more than 30 billion euros globally.
