UK - The £3.7bn (€3.9bn) London Pension Fund Authority has terminated a £219m target return mandate with UBS Global Asset Management because of poor performance and a lack of confidence in the firm.

The news came in the minutes of a September 2008 meeting of the LPFA's Investment Committee that are now on the fund's website.

The minutes state: "After a brief discussion of the continuing poor performance of UBS, the reasons for it and the general view that officers and advisers have no confidence that the people left in UBS will be able to generate better performance in the future it was agreed to terminate the UBS mandate."

The scheme would put the funds temporarily into a cash fund and start to look for a replacement manager.

The move follows a "yellow card" handed out to UBS by the fund in February 2008, according to earlier minutes.

According to the fund's website, UBS's performance target was the Retail Price Index +6% (gross of fees). In the year to the end of March 2008 its relative performance against benchmark was -8.7.

It was also noted that an additional investment of £50m would be put into private equity,

In December it was reported that Anthony Mayer would take over as chairman of the fund from Neil Newton, who would leave at the end of 2008. Mayer is a former chairman of the Greater London Authority.

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