UK - Dumfries and Galloway pension fund is looking to appoint a pension fund investment manager to manage up to £45m (€58.2m) in its UK and global property assets.

The pension fund with £400m in assets under management currently allocates 65% of its assets to equities, 30% to bonds and 5% to property, but it is planning to increase its real estate assets to 10%.

That said, Andrew Ewert, treasury officer for Dumfries and Galloway Council, admitted the fund's value may have recently suffered a drop given the current economic climate so he is uncertain about the future strategy of the fund.

"We will see where it goes and hopefully it will settle down. Once we increase the real estate holdings we will let the situation dictate what we do next."

Dumfries and Galloway Council officials are unsure whether they will renew the existing arrangement with RREEF, asset manager to the pension fund's real estate investment plans.

According to a meeting held on 21 August, 2008, RREEF's core property fund was found to be underperforming over the previous 12 months and was trailing the benchmark by 8.2%.

This, together with the underperformance of two global equity mandates, helped contribute to the pension fund's negative return of -1.5%.

RREEF is the real estate division of Deutsche Bank's asset management division, and had over €48.3bn in assets under management worldwide to 30 June 2008.

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