The £80m (e130m) UK-based Arla Foods pension scheme has appointed Frank Russell to manage its entire pension fund portfolio through Russell’s multi-manager funds set-up.
The trustee’s, advised by Jardine Reeves Brown, selected a 70% equity and 30% bond split for the fund’s investments with scheme specific benchmarks.The assets were formerly managed by a single investment bank, Schroders.
“The trustees were interested in the concept of a multi-manager approach to the investment of the pension fund and found that Frank Russell was the obvious choice in the market place,” says David Firth, chairman of the trustees. Frank Russell Securities has also been appointed to provide the transition management services for the switch.
In a separate overseas appointment, Russell’s multi-manager product received the endorsement of the South African Telkom Retirement fund to manage an R1.4bn international equity mandate.
The assets will be invested in five regional multi-manager portfolios, serviced from Russell’s Johannesburg office.
Willem Myburg, principal officer of Telkom Retirement Fund says: “We were impressed by the arguments for a specialist multi-manager approach.