EUROPE - The London Borough of Lewisham Pension Fund has awarded a passive equity and bond mandate to BlackRock and UBS.

In its initial tender - announced in August of last year - Lewisham said it would consider both market capitalisation and non-market capitalisation approaches.

The mandate's size is to range between £100m (€130m) and as much as £600m, it said.

BlackRock and UBS beat out 12 other competitors for the mandate.

In other news, the trustee of the £2bn British American Tobacco UK Pension Fund has appointed LCP as investment advisers to the fund, which has more than 15,000 members.

Phil Boyle, partner at LCP, said the consultancy would be working with the pension fund to build a dynamic investment strategy.

Maria Crellin, UK pensions manager at BAT, cited LCP's investment capabilities and its "innovative ideas in the current economic climate".

Lastly, facility services provider ISS UK has appointed NOW: Pensions Trust to provide its auto-enrolment pension scheme.

From January 2013, NOW: Pensions will provide auto-enrolment pensions to eligible employees within ISS UK's workforce of 42,500 people.

Matthew Brabin, CFO at ISS UK, said NOW: Pensions offered the best "cultural fit" for the company and cited the fact that it had experience delivering auto-enrolment successfully in other markets.

Topics