Interview – The Greater Manchester Pension Fund
INTERVIEW – PADDY DOWDALL
“The economy of Greater Manchester provides some great investment opportunities.”
The assistant executive director of the Greater Manchester Pension Fund tells Andrew Holt about the challenges of building back better, how to make an impact and why it is good to support local businesses but not local football teams.
Is there an investment opportunity for you among the build back better political rhetoric? Build back better has been mentioned prominently by the US and UK govern- ments. President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better Plan will see $2.2trn (£1.6trn) spent on health, social care, renewable energy and infrastructure. In the UK, it’s two policies: one for social care and health – building back better after Covid. The other is government investment based on three pillars: infra- structure, skills and innovation.
From an investment and pension fund perspective, there is clearly potential here, but it is too early to say as there is nothing investable at present. The hope, and expectation, is that this will change.
What about the leveling up agenda and the Northern Powerhouse idea: do they have any teeth from an investment perspective? Again, these have great potential. It is important
to remember that
Mature schemes need income, but open schemes, such as local government pen- sion schemes, can harvest the illiquidity premium, so we can lock up our invest- ment for a longer time. This creates opportunities to invest along- side governments that support these policy ideas, but it needs to be appropri- ately rewarded. There is
also pension
funds have particular investment needs. We need real returns, returns enhanced of inflation – while minimising volatility.
12 | portfolio institutional | December-January 2022 | issue 109 a challenge in putting
together the investment structures. There is potential for some of this government funding to be put into structures that would facilitate local government
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