The £426m (e645m) UK Mobil Pension and Dependants Benefit Plan has shaken up its investment management strategy, following the removal of a string of underperforming managers.
The fund, which dropped active managers Schroders, Philips & Drew and Perpetual last year from mandates of £60m, £45m and £31m respectively, has selected two new active managers, AXA Rosenberg and Jupiter for briefs of £35m apiece in UK equities.
Stephanie Chessel, investment manager at Mobil, explains: “We were looking for complementary equity investment approaches, and the active specialist styles of Jupiter and quant approach of AXA Rosenberg, with their respective good track records suited our needs.”
The two new managers were selected from a shortlist of four following a long list drawn up by William M Mercer. Legal & General which held all the assets in the interim, retains a £70m passive chunk.
Pareto Partners picked up £20m of global bonds in the reshuffle, and will also manage a new currency overlay strategy for the fund, in an bid to reduce risk on international equity investment.
And Mercury collected an increase in its UK government and corporate bond portfolio from £59m to just over £100m
The Mobil scheme also consolidated its international equity portfolios under the management of Capital International, removing Templeton from a portion of the £30m tranche.
Chessel comments: “We carried out an ALM study with Bacon & Woodrow, which suggested more investment in UK bonds from international paper, and then we brought the UK portion under one manager for cost reasons.”
Chase Manhattan remains the fund’s global custodian.

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