UK - Cambridgeshire County Council has edged one step closed to completing the reallocation of its pension fund's equity portfolio and appointed Crédit Agricole Asset Management (CAAM) to manage a £160m European equities mandate.

Estelle Menard, CAAM's Paris-based European equities portfolio manager, will look after the allocation which makes up part of the pension fund's redistribution of equity assets.

Officials responsible for the local authority fund announced in January they were sacking their existing equity managers, UBS and Schroders, who looked after half - £700m - of the fund's £1.4bn in assets, for underperformance. (See earlier IPE story: UBS and Schroders sacked for poor performance)

Since then, Cambridgeshire has appointed State Street Global Advisers and RCM to each respectively look after £140m mandates for passive equities and global equities. (See earlier IPE stories: Cambridgeshire awards global equity mandate and Cambridgeshire goes passive)

This latest development means the pension fund has now reallocated £440m of its original holding but it is still unclear how the remaining £260m in assets will be managed.

According to the pension fund's 2007 actuarial review, the pension fund had liabilities of £1.6bn and assets of just over £1.38bn - giving it a shortfall of £219m or making it 84.6% funded.

Its allocation was unlikely to be changed, according to the report dated 20 March 2008, from its 63% holding in equities (£1.013bn), along with £173m in property (10.7%), £157m in fixed income (9.8%) and £42m (2.6%)

Elsewhere, Bedfordshire County Council has also appointed Hewitt as investment adviser to its £1.1bn pension fund. Hewitt's duties will be to deliver general investment consultancy, including investment strategy, manager selection and monitoring and elected member training.

If you have any comments you would like to add to this or any other story, contact Julie Henderson on + 44 (0)20 7261 4602 or email julie.henderson@ipe.com

Topics