Feb. 1, 2007 (China Knowledge) – Ping An Insurance (Group) and China Merchants Bank (CMB) <600036><3968> will manage RMB 2.3 billion assets of the Shenzhen's city government.

Shenzhen Occupational Pension Fund Centre, set up in 2002 as the first government agency to manage enterprise annuities, will make the transfer from this month. The assets consist of more than 850 company accounts covering 64,000 personal accounts.

Ping An would act as the trustee and investment agency while CMB would be the custodian bank and account manager, the centre said on its website.

The move is in response to a central government demand that local agencies transfer enterprise annuities - pension funds set up by companies voluntarily to give staff extra retirement benefits - to qualified financial organizations this year.