Kazakh central bank fund seeks advisers on managing $110bn reserves

Kazakhstan's National Investment Corporation (NIC), a sovereign wealth fund managed by the country's central bank, is looking to appoint consultants to help it pick external investment managers to manage around $110 billion of the country's wealth.

The NIC manages Kazakhstan's foreign reserves and says it is aiming to become one of the world's largest institutional investors in alternative assets. The consulting mandate will also cover the $80 billion Kazakh National Fund, a domestic stabilisation fund, and $30 billion in foreign exchange reserves held by the central bank.

The tender seeks to appoint just one consulting firm that can fulfil all of the requirements, including conducting a review of strategic asset allocation and investment policy for the National Fund and the foreign exchange reserves.

The consultants will then be asked to help the NIC pick managers for the National Fund and foreign exchange reserve portfolios, and smaller mandates of $300 million each for a hedge fund portfolio and a private equity portfolio for the NIC itself.

The NIC was founded in 2012 and has assets of around $20 billion, according to the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute. Last year it advertised for managers of a fund-of-hedge-funds mandate of up to $150 million – but is clearly upping its game in a bid "to become one of the world's largest institutional investors managing alternatives", according to its mission statement.

The consultancy request for proposals is open until the morning of this Wednesday, July 30. More details are available here.