Northern Trust Global Advisors (NTGA) has pipped Frank Russell in a head-to-head multi-manager beauty parade for a £58m (E89m) brief outsourced by the UK pension fund of chemical specialists Rohm and Haas.
The multi-manager UK and global equities mandate was put out to tender following poor performance against the index by incumbents Deutsche Morgan Grenfell and JP Morgan, running UK and overseas equities respectively.
Tony Pound, pension fund manager at Croydon-based Rohm and Haas, says: “We searched the field and only Northern Trust and Frank Russell offered the pure multi-manager structure we wanted. We felt that using individual segregated funds meant we could become a victim of style, and although UK houses claim they are flexible, if they have a particular bias and they feel that bias may not be working it takes some time to change. By this time the market sentiments may have changed and the fund may suffer.”
“I have felt the multi-manager approach would be appropriate for smaller funds for a number of years.”
Pound adds that Northern Trust won the day both for performance reasons, having “beaten the index by around 150 basis points on average for the last three years,” but he adds that the fund trustees also felt comfortable with NTGA’s active and open involvement with their multi-manager structure.
Rohm and Haas is also reviewing a £20m bond brief managed by Deutsche Morgan Grenfell.