OREANDA-NEWS. On March 05, 2008 Parex Asset Management (PAM), the leading investment management company in the Baltic States, has signed an agreement with First Latvian Closed Pension Fund ( Pirmais Slegtais Pensiju Fonds ) to manage part of the financial portfolio of the First Pension Plan, reported the press-centre of PAM.
 
In November 2007 JSC Pirmais Slegtais Pensiju Fonds announced the tender for management of a part of the financial portfolio of the largest pension plan in Latvia in terms of assets. The winner was selected based on several criteria, including market expertise, size of assets under management, team professionalism and the company's track record on the pension fund market in Latvia and in Europe. Parex Asset Management has been awarded the mandate and will start portfolio management as soon as the agreement is registered in the Financial and Capital Markets Commission of Latvia.

At the signing ceremony on Wednesday Mr. Robert Idelson, CEO of Parex Asset Management commented: “This agreement highlights the high professionalism of our team and acknowledges our leading position in investment management market in Latvia. We are delighted to work with the largest private pension plan in Latvia as an institutional client, who has entrusted us to manage part of their financial instruments portfolio”.

Anri Leimanis, Chairman of the Board, JSC Pirmais Slegtais Pensiju Fonds has stated: “The Pension Plan's assets have exceeded 25 million lats and we have started to review the options for improving the portfolio performance whilst retaining our relatively conservative investment strategy, which has proven very successful for the past 10 years. We believe that the Pension Plan's participants will very much benefit from the fact that there will be two financial portfolio managers, competing for best performance results with the same limits established by the Pension Fund. Our long-standing partner Evli Securities IBS will continue to manage another part of our financial portfolio. Having reviewed all proposals submitted by investment management companies in Latvia, and after having evaluated their expertise in the financial markets, we have chosen Parex Asset Management as the second financial portfolio manager”.

JSC Pirmais Slegtais Pensiju Fonds
JSC Pirmais Slegtais Pensiju Fonds is the only private pension fund in Latvia with shareholders being employers (Lattelecom Group companies and Latvenergo). The First Pension Plan includes 12,400 members, with over 25,7 million lats accrued on their accounts. JSC Pirmais Slegtais Pensiju Fonds is the first largest 3-rd tier pension plan of the 17 plans registered in Latvia.