For the first time China's National Council for Social Security Fund (SSF) yesterday awarded 10 foreign fund managers the intensely sought after mandates to invest more than US$1 billion in overseas stocks and bonds. ?

 

SSF currently manages around 200 billion yuan (US$25.3 billion) in the welfare fund, of which US$1 billion has been earmarked for overseas investment.

 

Some 84 fund managers from all over the?world?were in competition for the mandates. Two of the 10 winners are asset management companies owned by Allianz, Germany's biggest insurer and two others are arms of AXA, France's top insurer. SSF posted the names of the ten successful candidates on its website yesterday.

 

Xiang Huaicheng, chairman of the SSF, said the appointments marked a historic step for the fund. "Overseas investment is very important for the social security fund to broaden its investment channels, diversify its investment risks and preserve and increase the value of the fund," he said.

 

The mandates are considered the most prestigious ever awarded by a Chinese institutional investor. International fund houses had predicted the first awards would lead to more business in the future.

 

The SSF intends to place more assets with the same managers to handle next year, Xiang said. But it had no current plans to name a second group of managers.

 

(China Daily November 30, 2006)