Nordic fund mandates for $60m “anti global warming” investments

A major Nordic region pension fund is searching for an asset manager to run a $60m (€41m) portfolio of “anti-global warming stocks” via IPE-Quest.com.
A spokesperson for the pension fund, which cannot be named because of the anonymous nature of the IPE-Quest.com platform, said: “We feel the need to have some anti-global warming investment in our portfolio because this is a problem the world will face for decades to come.”
The fund expects managers to offer portfolios investing in renewable energy, clean tech and future fuels, although they suspect that company valuations in some of the sectors are currently at a peak.
The spokesperson said: “Our main concern with this mandate is that most stocks in this sector already have very high price to earnings (P/E) ratios so we will be asking managers to provide details of their chosen benchmark returns over the past five years.” The fund has asked IPE-Quest.com to include additional questions regarding historical P/Es of the stocks in their benchmarks plus a question asking managers to predict where the P/Es are likely to be at end 2007 and 2008.
The fund is hoping for responses from managers witheither global or regional products. The spokesperson said: “There are a number of regional managers with funds investing in their own market or region and these are of interest to us as well as global products”. The pension fund expects asset managers to have at least $250m under management in similar mandates and a minimum one-year track record for this product. Performance must be stated to the end of 2007, net of fees. The closing date for responses via IPE-Quest.com is 02 February.
The mandate will be subject to the pension funds’ ethical restrictions for investments. Thus the manager is not allowed to invest in companies blacklisted by the pension fund.
IPE-Quest.com is an online manager search facility that connects institutional investors and asset managers. Investors announce their manager searches free of charge and anonymously on the site. IPE-Quest.com then alerts asset managers to the new mandate on the site and they can decide whether or not to reply. Responding via the online application form attached to each Quest costs asset managers approximately €100 per response. Link to IPE-Quest.com