UK - Gloucestershire County Council has appointed GMO as global equity manager for its £737.5m (€843.2m) pension fund.

The mandate is between £100m and £200m, and as at 31 March 2009 the funds held by Mellon Transition Management was almost £110m.

GMO has a target to outperform the MSCI All Country World Index or equivalent benchmark by 2 to 3% p.a. (gross) over rolling three to five year periods.

The total final value of the contract is £120m.

According to the draft accounts for 2008/09, the Gloucestershire pension fund fell in value by £183.3m - almost one-fifth — to £737.5m over the 12 months to 31 March 2009.

As at that date, the fund’s asset allocation was UK equities (24.4%), overseas equities (25.3%), UK bonds (19.4%), overseas bonds (5%), property unit trusts (7.6%) and cash (14.6%).

At 31 March 2009, the fund retained eight investment managers: Western Asset Management Company, Barclays Global Investors, UBS Global Asset Management, Standard Life Investments, Hermes Investment Management Property Unit Trust, Mellon Transition Management, Acadian and Yorkshire Fund Managers.

The fund was 74% funded as at 31 March 2007, the date of its last actuarial valuation, when it was worth £950m.
 

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