UK - Flintshire County Council has appointed State Street Global Advisors (SSgA) to run a £20m (€22.4m) absolute return mandate for the Clwyd Pension Fund.

In June the council issued a tender on behalf of the scheme for one or more managers to run a specialist fund of hedge fund or multi strategy mandate. (See earlier IPE article: Clwyd tenders hedge fund portfolio)

It has now revealed the pension fund, valued at £697m at 31 March 2009, has awarded the mandate to SSgA. The £20m of assets will be invested in the SSARIS Multi-Manager Absolute Return Strategy, an absolute return fund of hedge funds with a target return of 3-6% over US Treasury bills, over the market cycle.

SSgA claimed the strategy "combines a convergent approach, one based on fundamental valuation of companies, with a divergent approach, which focuses on trends and momentum factors that reflect changing market themes and investor sentiment."

Philip Latham, Clwyd Pension Fund manager from Flintshire County Council, said: "We are confident that SSARIS will meet our investment objectives with its Multi-Manager Absolute Return Strategy."

The mandate follows the appointment of seven external advisers as part of a framework agreement in October 2008, after Clywd completed its fund structure review in 2007. This included the appointment of a commodities and portable alpha manager. (See earlier IPE articles: Gloucester seeks equity manager as Clwyd picks advisers and Clwyd finds commodities and portable alpha managers)

If you have any comments you would like to add to this or any other story, contact Nyree Stewart on + 44 (0)20 7261 4618 or email nyree.stewart@ipe.com

Topics