UK – The £22bn (e35bn) Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) has selected Henderson Global Investors to manage a £225 million portfolio of UK equities using the firm’s ‘enhanced core’ active investment management approach.

The fund has also selected Merrill Lynch Investment Managers to manage a similar enhanced index portfolio.

Hendersons says the enhanced core style offers many of the benefits of an index fund, such as risk control and liquidity, but with the potential to outperform the index by exploiting well-researched market inefficiencies and stock substitution techniques.

The portfolio is constructed so that there are no significant size, sector, factor, country or currency risks.

Peter Moon, Chief Investment Officer at USS, said: “We consider enhanced core management to be an excellent complement to traditional passive index management because of the potential for enhancing returns while providing similar risk characteristics.”