The Guardians of the New Zealand Superannuation Fund have completed a two-day board meeting. Sunday was the first day and was dedicated to considering the investment issues facing the Fund and drew on the input from industry experts and the Board's own research.

Guardians' chairman, David May, said that the day had been very productive with issues ranging from how comparable international funds have approached their investment tasks to considering the risk profile of the Fund being traversed. "We are undergoing a rigorous planning process to identify and consider all issues before we begin the implementation of our investment strategy in the third quarter" he said.

After the regular Guardians' Board meeting held today, the Board announced it had received responses from 13 firms to its investment advisor search request.

Mr May noted that such a level of response and the calibre of the candidate firms would ensure a robust and keenly contested selection process. Decisions on the Board's choice of investment advisors are expected at the end of January 2003.

The Board also announced that there has been an extremely high level of response to its search for a chief executive. The Board expected to identify its preferred chief executive candidate in the first quarter of 2003.

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