The £160m (e240m) UK Powys County Council Pension Fund has hived off assets of around £65m from incumbent manager Baring Asset Management, and appointed Lombard Odier to a £50m active UK equity mandate.
The rejig has also given a boost to assets managed by Barclays Global Investors, which now manages £80m (previously around £60m) via passive index tracking of UK equities, gilts and overseas equities. Barings continues to manage 20% of the fund (£30m) in active UK equities. John McNeil, principal assistant county treasurer at Powys, explains: “The reshuffle wasn’t due to any fall-out with Baring, but we were just looking for more consistent performance, so in conjunction with Watson Wyatt we took a good look at our investment strategies. Out of about 40 tenders we selected Lombard Odier because of their investment style and performance quality, and we are now looking for them to outperform the UK local authority median by 2%.”