Noticeboard PEOPLE MOVES


Dan Mikulskis has been appointed chief investment officer of The People’s Part- nership, the company which administers The People’s Pension. He joins in September from consultancy Lane, Clark & Peacock, where he is an investment partner.


When Mikulskis (pictured) takes up his new role, he will lead an investment team that oversees £21bn of assets for 6 million


people, which the company expects will double to £40bn within five years. Pensions consolidator Clara Pensions has appointed Richard Zugic as chief financial and operating officer.


The qualified actuary brings a quarter of a century of pensions and life insurance experience to the firm. Zugic is also a trustee of Abbey Life’s defined benefit pension scheme. He joins from Phoenix Group where he was the interim chief financial officer of Phoenix Re having previously been group chief actuary.


NOTICEBOARD


Workplace retirement scheme provider Smart Pension has committed an undis- closed investment to a new fund. The AXA ACT People & Planet Equity fund has been launched to invest in com- panies making measurable, positive con- tributions towards the environment and society. AXA secured Smart’s backing through its Sustainable Growth Plus fund. The Cambridge University Assistants’ Con- tributory Pension Scheme has appointed Redington as its strategic investment adviser.


The open defined benefit pension scheme manages £700m of assets for around 13,900 members, who are predominately support staff at the university.


8 | portfolio institutional | July-August 2023 | Issue 125


Professional trustee and pension govern- ance specialist Vidett has strengthened its offering through a series of appointments.


The firm was established earlier this year following the merger of 20-20 Trustees and Punter Southall Governance Services. Karen Wells joins as a client director in the London office, bringing more than 30 years of defined benefit and defined con- tribution scheme experience with her. Wells was previously a pensions manager at BMW Pension Services and was a prin- cipal at Mercer for 15 years. In Manchester, Caroline Eastwood joins as client director. She was a senior pensions manager at Nationwide Building Society and before that the Skipton Building Soci- ety, where she supported trustees and sponsors in outsourcing the administra- tion of the £8bn scheme. Before moving in-house, she was a member of the Mer- cer Governance Trustee Services team. The Birmingham office welcomes Claire Broadhurst as a senior trustee consultant from Taylor Wimpey, where she special- ised in governance for the £2bn scheme.


Redington will assist the investment com- mittee in its work to ensure the scheme meets all regulatory requirements. The consultant will also work to make the portfolios more sustainable, especially concerning the climate transition. British Airways has retained PwC as an adviser to the trustees of its New Airways Pension Scheme.


The firm has advised the scheme’s execu- tive team and its actuarial and investment advisers for 15 years. It will continue to pro- vide employer covenant advice on changing regulation, such as the new defined benefit funding code, as well as environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues. The trustees of a pension scheme spon- sored by financial services and insurance company Marine and General Mutual Life Assurance Society have signed an £80m


CALENDAR


Topics for upcoming portfolio institutional events:


13 September – ESG Club Conference 2023


September – Defined Contribution Roundtable October


– Fixed Income Roundtable


November – Sustainable Strategies Roundtable


Broadhurst has also been a pensions lead for LGSS, ensuring the employer’s statu- tory responsibilities were met. Finally, Rich Ingham joins the firm’s Lon- don office as a senior trustee consultant from Mercer, where he was a pension consultant. Ingham has helped trustees and sponsors implement defined contri- bution strategies, negotiate parent com- pany support packages, develop govern- ance


policies and manage schemes through to de-risking and wind up.


buy-in with Standard Life. The deal, which covers the benefits of around 700 mem- bers of the MGM Assurance Staff Pension Plan, was announced in June despite com- pleting in March. Finally,


the Church Commissioners for


England, which manages a £10.3bn endowment fund, is to exclude oil and gas companies from its portfolio unless they are in “genuine alignment with a 1.5-degree pathway” by the end of the year. The ban stretches to all companies pri- marily engaged in the exploration, pro- duction and refining of oil or gas. Following the decision, the Church is to exclude 11 oil companies from its portfolios which will see it cut ties with BP, Exxon- Mobil, Shell and Total as they are not aligned with the Paris Climate Agreement.


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