UK – The £360m (€525.5m) Bexley Council Pension Fund will launch a tendering process in the next week for its first private equity and hedge fund mandates amounting to 5% of the scheme’s assets.

The two fund of fund mandates will be split equally with a 2.5% investment in hedge funds and 2.5% ploughed into private equity.

According to a council spokesperson: “Interest has been shown following the Pensions Committee decision to tender for these mandates.”

The decision to move away from the fund’s initial 60/40 equity/bond split was prompted by an asset liability study conducted by Mercer last year.

“We want to inject more risk into the fund to help recover the deficit,” a council spokesperson said in November just a few days before trustees approved a 70/30 split.

This new shift in asset allocation will now see 65% in equities with 36% in UK equities and 29% in overseas equities, and 30% in bonds, another Bexley Council spokesperson told IPE.

According to the fund, there are currently no plans to increase the 5% investment in hedge funds and private equity.

Advertisements are due to appear in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) within the next week.

Mercer will continue to advice the Fund throughout both tendering processes.

Topics