UK - Strathclyde, the £9.4bn (€13.84bn) local authority fund administered by Glasgow City Council, will consider investing in hedge funds and commodities when the next investment review comes up in 2009.
 
David Crum, the fund's chief pensions officer, said today: "We currently do not invest in hedge funds and commodities, as our pension fund committee's perception of these asset classes is not very favourable."
 
He added that the pension fund has ruled out investments in these asset classes for the moment, "but it is certain that we will look at both these areas in the next review."
 
Speaking at the Fund Manager Selection 2007 conference in Zurich, Crum warned that for the committee members, who are ten Glasgow city councillors, "some educational work in the area of hedge funds and commodities needs to be done".
 
May's Scottish council elections will cause the composition of the committee to change radically, Crum added.
 
The fund has a three-year cycle in which it formally reviews its investment strategy.
 
Following its latest review last year, the fund appointed AllianceBernstein, Invesco Perpetual, Edinburgh Partners and Lazard to run unconstrained global equity mandates. Schroders was deselected as global equities manager.

The fund's investment adviser is Glasgow-based Hymans Robertson

Meanwhile, more than half of major institutional investors feel their governing bodies are more comfortable investing in hedge funds today than they were 12 months ago, according to State Street research released today.

The global study, which includes not just pension funds but endowments and foundations, found that more than half of all governing boards spend 15 per cent or more of their time on hedge funds.

Only four per cent of respondents indicated they had no hedge fund investments, down from 16% last year.

A majority of institutions said they found it difficult to gain a portfolio-wide view of risk, and that aggregating risk statistics provided by all hedge funds in their portfolio was problematic.

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