Lønmodtagernes Dyrtidsfond (“LD”) conducted an open procedure regarding Fund Management Services and Depository Services as announced in Contract Notice 2017/S 161-332360. Unfortunately, LD had to cancel this tender procedure, cf. Contract Notice 2017/S 193-396530, as all received tenders were considered non-compliant and “irregular. LD continued the procedure as a negotiated procedure cf. Section 61, 1) nº 2 of the Public Procurement Act and the negotiations have been conducted based on the same tender material. Thus, the object of the tender was to contract with a Fund Manager and a Depositary Bank (Global Custodian) regarding the fund management services and depositary services, respectively, of KLD’s assets. Nykredit Porteføljeadministration A/S and J.P. Morgan Europe, Copenhagen Branch, filial af J.P. Morgan Europe Limited, Storbritannien, has been awarded the contracts, and the contracts have been signed after the expiry of a 10 day standstill period.

The overall object of the tender was to identify and contract with a Fund Manager and a Depositary Bank (Global Custodian) regarding the fund management services and depositary services, respectively, of KLD’s assets.

Due to Danish financial regulation, some of the services have to be delivered by the Depository Bank and some of the services have to be delivered by the Fund Manager. However, some services could be delivered either by the Depository Bank or the Fund Manager. LD expected that the Depository Bank and the Fund Manager — with respect of Danish regulation — decided on their own, which of the 2 was in a better position to deliver such requested services.

With respect to the KLD's day-to-day business and operations, it was of utmost importance that the Depository Bank and the Fund Manager are able to work together and cooperate in an efficient manner and to provide services to the KLD. LD’s completed market dialogue meetings furthermore underlined the importance of Fund Managers’ and Depository Banks’ freedom to pair up and define their corporations beforehand and by themselves, not being forced into a pairing or corporation by LD. Therefore LD (on behalf of KLD) required a combined tender process of a Depository Bank and a Fund Manager which had joint experience in providing the requested depositary services and fund management services. The Depository Bank and the Fund Manager are thus required to hand in combined tenders for both contracts, which will be evaluated as such but the Depository Bank and the Fund Manager will in the end — according to legal requirements — be requested to sign 2 separate contracts governing their offered services, respectively.

Accordingly, LD conducted the tender process for Fund Management Services and Depository Services as 1 combined tender process including the 2 separate contracts but with an obligation for the tenderers to “pair up” beforehand and submit a combined tender for both contracts. Therefore, tenderers had to “team up” prior to the tender submission. LD allowed an entity to team up in more teams (e.g. the same Depositary can team up with more than 1 Fund Manager) as long as the legal requirements are fulfilled.

LD refers to the description above in Section II.2.4) regarding Lot 1, which is covering both Lot 1 and 2.