UK – The London Borough of Hackney has put out to tender a series of mandates, including a transition mandate, for the whole of its 450 million pound (710 million euro) pension fund. The scheme’s assets are currently managed in-house and by Barclays Global Investors (BGI) on a balanced basis.

Following an asset-liability study and a strategy review, the east London authority of Hackney has decided to follow other UK local authorities in the switch out of a balanced manager approach towards a more specialist approach. Jim Whitten, acting head of pensions at Hackney, confirmed the change in strategy was not as a result of poor performance by the in-house team, or BGI, which runs about half of the scheme’s funds.

A transition manager will be appointed in the interim to help minimise the costs of transfer, and assist in the process.

The final mandates will be for: an active fund manager to run 17% of the scheme’s assets; a passive UK equity mandate accounting for around 20% of the scheme’s assets; and two global equity mandates of 25% of the fund each. BGI is being invited to re-tender.

A property mandate currently run by Credit Suisse Asset Management for the remaining 13% is also under review.

The deadline for receipt of tenders is December 30 2002 for the individual mandates, and January 10 for the transition manager, with the final contract commencing at the beginning of April 2003.

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