UK – The newly-created £250m (e410m)defined benefit (DB) BG pension scheme for international oil and gas company BG Group (formerly British gas) has selected State Street Global Advisors (SSGA) for multi-asset and currency overlay mandates totalling £190m.

The DB scheme begins operations on July 4 and its genesis follows the demerger of gas pipeline outfit, Lattice Group, from BG last October.

State Street will manage a £125m multi-asset indexed brief, as well as a second £65m currency overlay mandate.

BG was advised by Watson Wyatt in the search and the fund has given SSGA a customised benchmark for performance measurement.

Janet Rice, head of pensions at BG group, comments: “This is a new DB scheme, which will incorporate the assets coming from the Lattice Group pension Scheme in which BG has been participating. We have chosen SSGA because of their strong reputation for passive management and their specialist skills in managing currency. SSGA were also highly client focused as they came up with solutions for our AVC investments.”

The fund has also appointed two new active managers and a global custodian but formal contracts have yet to be signed.