Noticeboard PEOPLE MOVES


The London Pensions Fund Authority (LPFA) has appointed Peter Ballard as director of risk and funding. Ballard, who is responsible for funding policy and investment strategy, joins from Willis Towers Watson where he was a director advising defined benefit pensions schemes with up to £30bn of assets under management.


Susan Martin has joined the board of £45bn pool LGPS Central as a non-executive director. Martin (pictured)


left Local Pensions Partnership in May after leading the pool for four years. She also has almost three years as chief execu- tive of LPFA on her CV. A former chief investment officer of the HSBC Pension Scheme has joined the boards of two retirement schemes after a short spell at London CIV. Mark Thompson (pictured) is now a com-


mittee member at Lloyds Banking Group Pension Trustees. He has also been appointed executive chair of


the UBS (UK) Pension & Life Assurance Scheme’s investment committee. Capital Cranfield has wel- comed another new face to its professional trustee team. Andrew Warwick-


Thompson (pictured) strengthens the trus- tee services specialist’s expertise having held roles at The Pensions Regulator, where he was executive director for regu- latory policy, and a stint as chief executive of LGPS Central. Warwick-Thompson is also a former trustee chair of the Mencap Pension Scheme. His appointment fol- lows Jon Millidge, Paul Watson and Rich- ard Hubbard joining the firm. Finally, the Pension Protec- tion Fund has named Lisa McCrory as its new chief finance officer. McCrory


CALENDAR Upcoming


portfolio institutional roundtables:


March ESG


April CDI May


Defined contribution


July Emerging market debt August


Multi asset September


Responsible investing


October Factor-based investing


(pictured), who held the role on an interim basis since October, will also continue as chief actuary for the pensions lifeboat, a position she has held for 18 months.


NOTICEBOARD


Pension Insurance Corporation (PIC) has placed £190m of debt in 21 solar parks in Spain. The parks are owned by Q-Energy, part of Qualitas Energy, and the proceeds will refinance debt. The AA-rated debt is guaranteed by Assured Guaranty. The final salary scheme insurer now has £700m invested in renewable energy. On the same day, PIC announced that it has insured the benefits of 7,000 mem- bers of the Co-operative Pension Scheme in a £1bn buy-in. The trustee remains responsible for paying those members benefits, but PIC will fund the payments. This is PIC’s second buy-in for a Co-op sponsored retirement scheme following an agreement with the Somerfield Pen- sion Scheme last year. PIC has also turned a longevity swap into a £1.6bn buy-in for the Merchant Navy Officers Pension Fund (MNOPF).


10 | portfolio institutional March 2020 | issue 91


The deal insures the benefits of around 14,000 members in what is the third such conversion PIC has completed, a sign of growing appetite for taking such a first step to de-risking.


Also active in the de-risking market is Legal & General. It has covered the retire- ment payments of 1,300 members of Allied Irish Banks’ UK pension scheme in a £1.1bn deal. The transaction was divided between a £850m buy-in and a £250m assured pay- ment policy. Local Pensions Partnership (LLP) has appointed Dutch asset manager Robeco to lead the engagement and voting strategy for its global equities and fixed income interests.


The five-year agreement is not the only connection


between the two parties.


Robeco manages €1.7bn (£1.4bn) for the pool across strategies such as low volatility and carbon reduction.


RPMI Railpen, investment manager for the £30bn railways pension scheme, has expanded its commercial property inter- ests after buying a nine-acre site in Dartford.


The 1.8 million square foot mixed-use development, which counts Mercedes, DHL, Sainsbury’s and Network Rail among its tenants, will form part of Railpen’s planned logistics and warehous- ing development in the area. Nest has made its sustainability ambi- tions clear by investing in a niche money market fund. It has allocated an undis- closed sum to BlackRock’s Institutional Cash Series Sterling Liquid Environmen- tally Aware Fund. The fund’s investments are liquid and tilted towards ESG factors. It excludes oil and tobacco stocks, among others and backs managers with high environmental performances while 5% of net revenue is used to off-set carbon footprint.


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