UK - The London Pensions Fund Authority (LPFA) has appointed ING Real Estate to manage a £150m global property mandate.

Philip Jones, investment manager at LPFA – which administers the pensions assets for 783,000 pension fund members – said the move to a single global property mandate is the third such allocation to property, having first entered the real estate investment market 10 years and later liquidating it all.

The fund, with assets of £3.6bn to June 30 2007, currently has its real estate monies in property unit trusts (UTs) but is in the process of divesting UTs in favour of a single allocation mandate to be managed as ING deems appropriate, said Jones.

ING’s appointment follows "a lengthy review" conducted with the support of Mercer Investment Consulting, to reduce the number of managers tendered from 18 to a final three and a manager able to "lead [LPFA] in the right direction", Jones added.

Real estate is currently included in LPFA’s alternative assets allocation, which is targeted to increase from 12% to 15%, according to figures presented on LPFA’s website.