The Pension Protection Fund (PPF) has created a new role in connection with the UK lifeboat fund’s move to increase internal investment management, appointing former Barclays banker Ian Scott as head of investment strategy.

The appointment comes as the £23.4bn (€29.7bn) fund in-sources more of its liability-driven investment (LDI) and wider investment activity, with its CFO having recently told IPE there would be a focus on buy-and-hold assets, and that internal staff numbers would increase by half a dozen by the end of the year.

The PPF said Scott would be responsible for advising on tactical trade ideas and medium-term shifts away from the strategic asset allocation.

Scott has worked for more than 20 years on the sell side, most recently at Barclays, as head of the global equity strategy team.

Before that, he was at Lehman Brothers and Nomura, the latter having acquired the European and Asian arms of the US investment bank when it collapsed in 2008.

Before joining Lehman, Scott had worked in buy-side positions, initially in fixed income and then in multi-asset strategy.

Barry Kenneth, the PPF’s CIO, welcomed Scott to the role.

“He brings with him a wealth of expertise and will help build our capabilities in strategic and tactical asset allocation,” said Kenneth.

“Attracting professionals of Ian’s calibre to join our award-winning team is an endorsement of where we are going.”

Scott said that, “in its relatively short history, the PPF has established a well-deserved reputation for innovative fund management”.

He added: “I am looking forward to building on and enhancing that, especially in the areas of strategic and tactical asset allocation.”

The PPF began building its in-house management team last year, a key appointment having been the hiring of Trevor Walsh, who joined the fund in October 2015 as its first head of LDI.

The PPF has explained its move to grow its in-house management in terms of a desire to better control the fund’s portfolio.

In another move by a large UK institutional investor to strengthen in-house investment capabilities, RPMI Railpen, the £24bn asset manager for the Railways Pension Scheme (RPS), today announced that it has hired Anna Rule for the new position of head of property.

Joining from Aviva Investors, Rule will be responsible for developing Railpen’s in-house property investment capabilities.

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