UK – The UK Environment Agency has dropped Schroder Investment Management from a £430m mandate and in its place hired Henderson Global Investors to manage a £330m balanced mandate and boosted an existing Merrill Lynch brief by a further £100m, following a review of the investment management arrangements of its active pension fund.

No changes have been made to the investment mandates held by the fund’s other incumbents Legal & General and Friends Ivory & Sime.

Credit Suisse First Boston carried out the transition of the fund’s assets with the transition performance measured by Inalytics.

Sue Timbrell, the Environment Agency’s head of pensions and treasury management, comments: “We were pleased with Merrill Lynch Investment Managers’ recent past performance for our fund and decided to increase their mandate. In the case of Henderson we were impressed with their investment process. The transition needed to be independently measured to inform committee members of the costs of change.”

Consultant Hymans Robertson advised on the manager review.

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