South-west LGPS pool launches senior staff search

The £23bn (€26.2bn) Brunel Pension Partnership (BPP) is hiring an independent chair and two directors.

The collaboration between 10 local government pension schemes (LGPS) based in the south and south-west of England is hunting for staff to build a wholly owned asset management company, to be operational by April 2018.

According to the job descriptions, posted on the BPP’s website this morning, the independent chair should have “chaired an equivalent organisation or significant committee”.

The job advert said: “We are seeking a leader whose experience will have been gained in the investment sector, or who may have been a CEO or senior director from the corporate, legal and/or financial services private sector, or may have led a significant public sector or not-for-profit organisation.”

Candidates would also benefit from experience with financial regulation and local government, as well as having a link to the area encompassed by the Brunel schemes.

For the two non-executive directors, candidates “will need to demonstrate financial literacy and an understanding of the wider pension and investment space”. One candidate will chair the BPP’s risk committee “and will therefore require significant investment knowledge”.

The BPP was established between the LGPS funds for Avon, Buckinghamshire, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Somerset, Wiltshire and the Environment Agency.

It has already laid out plans to create 22 pooled funds.

In the coming months, the pension funds will establish the Brunel Company, which will act as the regulated asset manager for pooled funds.

It follows a similar path to that of the London CIV – 33 council pension funds from the UK’s capital have established a wholly owned asset management company to pool mandates and save management fees.

“The BPP is a complex project now at a crucial stage – establishing the Brunel Company as start-up company that will have significant assets under management from 2018, supported by 10 public sector shareholders,” the job description explained.

“The chair and [directors] of the Brunel Company will require outstanding organisational and leadership capabilities.”

Applicants should contact recruitment company Korn Ferry, which is leading the search.

The job description is available here.