Border to Coast Pensions Partnership has settled on a due diligence provider for its private markets investment programme, which covers infrastructure, private equity and private credit.

According to an EU tender notice and confirmed by the local authority asset pooling vehicle, it has selected Albourne Partners to provide a series of services, such as investment and operational due diligence, market and strategy research, and portfolio construction support.

Albourne is also due to perform the investment book of record reconciliation, and the contract with the advisor allows for “ancillary” services such as portfolio analytics, compliance monitoring and co-investment due diligence support.

The initial contract is for four years.

David Booth, chief investment officer at Border to Coast, attributed the pool’s hiring of Albourne Partners to the advisor’s “depth and breadth across alternative assets combined with both strong investment and operational capabilities” and “commitment to transparency and investor alignment”.

“I would like to thank the Border to Coast team – and Mark Lyon and Ian Sandiford in particular – for running such a robust selection process,” he added.

James Lewis, partner in the client group at Albourne, said Border to Coast had shown “exemplary diligence” during a “thorough” procurement process.

Border to Coast expects to manage more than £5bn (€5.6bn) across its private markets offerings over the next three to five years. It has previously also said it expected this to rise to some £10bn “over the longer term”.

The last of the three offerings in the private markets programme to be launched was for private credit, in November last year. By then Border to Coast had secured £1.8bn in commitments across the three offerings from different combinations of the 12 local government pension schemes (LGPS) that are its “partner” funds.

In the statement about Albourne Partners’ appointment Border to Coast said it expected to secure more than £1bn for upcoming renewals for two of the offerings.

The 12 LGPS funds behind Border to Coast have around £45bn in assets under managment between them.

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