GLOBAL – Barking & Dagenham's £580m (€695bn) local authority fund has hired Kempen Capital Management and Baillie Gifford to manage nearly £200m in long-only global equity, replacing Goldman Sachs Asset Management.
Appointed alongside Longview Partners and Vontobel Asset Management in a four manager-strong framework agreement, the Dutch and UK managers will each receive £95m, the local authority confirmed.
The four companies were among 10 to apply for inclusion in the framework, first tendered in July.
The London borough said at the time managers would be granted mandates between £75m and £150m in size.
The £190m award accounts for nearly one-third of the fund's total assets under management.
David Dickinson, group manager of pensions and treasury at the borough, told IPE the mandates would be funded by diverting assets away from a quant strategy overseen by Goldman Sachs Asset Management.
According to the fund's most recent annual report from the end of March 2012, Goldman was responsible for £187m in assets.
Dickinson added that the decision was driven by a wish to shift towards a more long-term approach, focusing on dividends and growth.
He said the decision had been a strategic one rather than driven by dissatisfaction with Goldman's overall performance.
The strategy will aim to outperform the MSCI All Country World index by as much as 4% a year on a three-year rolling basis, with the framework with Longview and Vontobel remaining in place for four years from last December.
In other news, a European pension fund is searching for a manager to oversee a $10m (€7m) regional equity mandate, using IPE-Quest.
According to search QN1283, the fund would like to invest the $10m in regional strategies, such as Europe excluding the UK, Asia excluding Japan and Japanese, UK and US equity.
The long-only investment by the scheme will permit any suitable benchmark to be applied and should focus on dividend-paying stocks through income funds and other similar vehicles that must be UCITS compliant.
The fund asks for managers with at least three years' experience and $500m in similar strategies, although it would prefer managers with at least five years of experience.
Additionally, any company should have at least $3bn in assets under management.
Applicants have until 5 March to apply and should state their performance net of fees to the end of January.
Finally, BNP Paribas Securities Services announced that it has been re-appointed as custodian for the Australian Catholic Superannuation and Retirement Fund.
The AUD4.5bn (€3.5bn) fund, open to any worker and investing in line with Catholic values, first hired the French custodian in 1995.
The IPE.com news team is unable to answer any further questions about IPE-Quest tender notices to protect the interests of clients conducting the search. To obtain information directly from IPE-Quest, please contact Jayna Vishram on +44 (0) 20 3465 9330 or email jayna.vishram@ipe-quest.com.
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