Greenwich hires managers for new multi-asset, EM equity strategies

Greenwich’s local authority fund has awarded £200m (€230m) worth of mandates, as it completes the implementation of a new asset allocation.

The local government pension scheme for the London borough of Greenwich has selected a manager for a £100m multi-asset absolute return mandate, and a second £100m emerging market equity mandate.

The 10-year multi-asset mandate has been awarded to Invesco Perpetual, with the manager beating nine other applicants to the award. Greenwich said it was looking for a manager to outperform the three-month sterling LIBOR rate by a significant margin, defined as 3-5%.

Fidelity beat a similar number of managers to the 10-year contract for the global emerging market equity mandate. The manager will be expected to outperform the MSCI EM index by 2-4%, placing the funds invested into an existing pooled vehicle.

Previously drawing its equity exposure from a UK equity and a general overseas exposure accounting for 45% of assets, the local government pension fund instead agreed to allocate 15% to UK equities and a further 35% to overseas equities.

The overseas exposure includes the 10% target allocation to emerging market equity but also a 15% passively managed global equity mandate and a 10% exposure to smart beta strategies.

The two awards comes after BlackRock was hired for a £400m passive global equity mandate, and Partners Group put in charge of a £100m diversified alternatives mandate – part of £700m worth of new mandates handed out by Greenwich.