UK - Glasgow City Council is seeking a provider of investment consultancy services for the £8.4bn (€9.27bn) Strathclyde Pension Fund.

The five-year contract will require the successful appointee to provide advice and assistance in setting the fund's investment strategy and investment management structure, along with manager selection, monitoring and retention and the termination of contracts.

Other services include selection of custodians and transition managers, setting benchmarks and, where required, asset liability modelling and elected member training.

And while the council is seeking a provider for all investment activities, it confirmed it would also consider applications purely for the provision of manager selection services.

The tender follows the completion of the pension fund's investment strategy review which resulted in a revised strategic benchmark that although remaining at 73% equities, 12% property and 15% bonds included a switch from active to passive exposure in the equity portfolio. (See earlier IPE article: Strathclyde completes strategy review)

Meanwhile, the minutes of the last pension fund committee meeting on 9 September 2009 revealed the main outcomes of the triennial review of the fund's investment strategy and structure, conducted by Hymans Robertson, and said "the actuarial valuation concluded that the fund remained comparatively well-funded at 95%".

This is in contrast to the position at the end of March 2009 when the value of the scheme's assets dropped to £7.48bn with a funding level of approximately 74.5%, compared to assets of £9.98bn at the last full actuarial valuation in March 2008, when the funding level was 95.1%. (See earlier IPE article: Strathclyde deficit hits £2.6bn)

Closing date for applications for the consultancy role is 20 November 2009 and further information can be obtained from Glasgow City Council.

If you have any comments you would like to add to this or any other story, contact Nyree Stewart on + 44 (0)20 7261 4618 or email nyree.stewart@ipe.com

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