UK – Ian Faulkner, investment manager of the 2.1 billion-pound (2.99 billion-euro) Devon County Council Pension Fund, is to retire next year.

Deputy investment manager Barry White said Faulkner’s retirement has prompted the fund to reassess its structure and shift to external managers. He said there would be no direct replacement for Faulkner. “His post will not be in the new structure.”

The fund has two external managers at the moment, UBS Global Asset Management and Capital International, who run passive portfolios. The fund now plans to outsource the rest of its assets, still on a passive basis.

It has tenders four new mandates. They cover 315 million pounds in UK equities, 64 million pounds in European equities, 51 million pounds of North American equities and 26 million pounds in Japanese equities.

According to the minutes of the authority’s Investment and Pension Fund Committee meeting on August 1, the fund has conducted an asset/liability study. The committee resolved that “a central asset allocation benchmark of 70% equities and 30% bonds be adopted but with manager discretion to move up to 10% away from the benchmark on a tactical basis when appropriate and that the management agreements be amended accordingly”.

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