UK - Falkirk Council has awarded Legal and General Investment Management (LGIM) a £280m (€299m) passive mandate.

The Scottish local authority pension fund initiated a search for a passive manager to run a portfolio valued at between £150m to £325m in July 2008, in an attempt to introduce more flexibility into its portfolio.

After receiving four tenders for the role Falkirk awarded LGIM the contract to run a passive UK and regional international equities portfolio, which is initially valued at £150m, but is expected to increase in value to £280m.

The pension fund, valued at £900m in July 2008, stated at the time that the mandate would be funded by a reduction in the assets allocated to Capital International and Schroder, although it said the existing managers would be retained. (See earlier IPE article: Falkirk targets passive manager for 'flexibility')

Elsewhere the University of Leeds' £201m Pension and Assurance Scheme (PAS) has awarded two five-year investment mandates for active UK and overseas equity portfolios, valued at around £80m.

Following the start of a manager search in February 2008, the university appointed TT International to run the active UK equity mandate over five other tenders, while Investec Asset Management was awarded the active global equity portfolio after competing against three other providers.

Latest figures from the university's annual accounts for 2007/08 showed the value of the PAS had fallen over the year from £224m to £209m, resulting in a reduced surplus of just £4m compared with £31m in July 2007. (See earlier IPE article: University of Leeds reviews equity managers)

Leeds University claimed the £27m reduction was a result of changes in actuarial assumptions - reflecting expectations of increased future inflation and life expectancy - and a decline in equity values, as the scheme's asset allocation in July 2008 was 68% equities, 30.3% bonds and 1.7% in other assets.

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