Interview | Mike Weston
“Huge progress
has been made, but there is still more to do.”
Mike Weston discusses his first month as LGPS Central’s new boss, the importance of responsible investing, private equity and doing the small stuff well.
How would you describe your first month in the role? Busy but focused. We at Central have one priority, which is delivering the investment returns that our partner funds need to secure their pension payments over the long term. There are approximately 1 mil- lion members covered by Central’s partner funds and perhaps double that if you put their dependents in. Delivering those returns is based on three pillars. Firstly maximising the benefits we can get from the scale that comes with pooling. We are targeting £250m of cost savings by 2034. We have private market funds com- ing on stream to improve access to those asset classes and at a better cost. There is also internal management of passive equity strategies.
These are the ways that we can maximise the benefits of scale. Secondly, it is about recognising that this is a huge change pro- cess for everyone involved. Finally, we need to be is the positive alterna- tive for our partner funds to the traditional asset managers that they would have used before pooling came along. That is all about
18 | portfolio institutional | April 2019 | issue 83
being FCA-regulated because there is a long-term focus and benefitting from total lack of conflict of interest. Partner funds are our clients and our owners. We are bringing together people from a local government pension scheme that have a public service ethos with people from the private sector that have a commer- cial focus and then making the best of the unique combination of talented individuals. Everything we do is also supported by being a responsible investor in everything that we do. Responsible investing is important to our partner funds.
What is it that you want to have achieved by your first anniversary as CEO? In my first month I was able to celebrate LGPS Central’s first anniversary on 1 April. It was a great opportunity to reflect on what we achieved in the first year – roughly £20bn under management and advice from nothing in a year is a fantastic achievement. Huge progress has been made, but there is still more to do. Recognising that there is still a big process of change, so there is a
huge communication need amongst the partner funds, the pension officers, the sec- tion 151 officers, the elected members of the partner funds and everyone within Central because we are all trying to go forward together at the same time and do all of the development that is needed. A lot of my time so far has been out and about across the region meeting the partner funds to ensure that the communication is strong. Taking that on is going to be a key part of what I will need to do in my first year. It might sound dull, but we do not need any more radical structural change in the next year. There has been enough of that as there is in terms of getting the pool up and running.
The key priorities that I will be judged upon in the first year are the delivery of the prom- ises that we have made to our clients. That is delivery on our investment promises. The partner funds have given us assets to manage, so we need to be delivering on investment performance and operational performance. We are working with and competing with established asset managers, so we have to be operating at the same level of effective-
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