NZ Superannuation Fund Awards Two New Mandates

New Zealand Superannuation Fund Awards Two New Mandates

Auckland (31 January 2006) - The New Zealand Superannuation Fund today announced the appointments of Numeric Investors LLC and Bridgewater Associates.

Numeric Investors LLC (Numeric) has been appointed to manage an equity-only multi-strategy mandate, benchmarked against the MSCI World Index.

Under the mandate Numeric has discretion to employ two or more of its equity strategies. Those strategies cover a number of countries and include long-short investing, a strategy that involves combining a long position in one company and a short position in another. Using a combination of these strategies overlaid with futures and swap positions, Numeric will maintain a market exposure closely in line with the benchmark MSCI World Index.

This is the second mandate awarded to Numeric since the Fund began investing in September 2003. In May 2004 they were appointed to manage a US small-cap growth mandate. This is the first mandate where the Fund has given a manager discretion to invest across an approved range of the manager's investment strategies.

Bridgewater Associates (Bridgewater) has been appointed to manage a Global Tactical Asset Allocation (GTAA) mandate, benchmarked against the Citigroup World Government Bond Index.

Under the mandate Bridgewater invests in its Pure Alpha Fund which makes relative value trades, both long and short, between equities, bonds, commodities and currencies on a global basis. Bridgewater then overlays the benchmark exposure using a combination of physical and derivative positions.

Commenting on the appointments, the Fund's CEO Paul Costello said: "These two new appointments are significant for a number of reasons: they are the first in which alpha, or excess return over and above the benchmark, is the primary driver of the mandate with the chosen benchmark being more a matter of convenience; and, they both allow the manager to make short positions in stocks or markets that the manager believes will under-perform the long positions."

The appointments of Numeric and Bridgewater bring the total number of external investment mandates to 28. The value of the Fund at 31 December 2005 was NZ$8.4 billion.

ENDS

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