Noticeboard


People moves Rodney Norman Nailesh Rambhai Anna Troup


The Pension Protection Fund (PPF) has welcomed Rodney Norman, Nailesh Rambhai and Anna Troup to its board as non-execu- tive directors. Norman has stints at HM Treasury and National Savings and Investments on his CV, while Rambhai is a senior executive of a Fortune 50 business and has experience of working with pension scheme trus- tees. Meanwhile, Troup brings more than 20 years of financial services, asset management, investment


banking, governance and operational risk to the table. Tom Joy and Rosemary Hilary have stepped down from the pensions lifeboat’s board as


Mandates


Border to Coast Pensions Partnership, a £46bn local government retirement scheme pool, has appointed Royal London Asset Management, M&G Investment Management and Insight Investment as its external managers for an investment grade credit fund that is expected to be worth more than £2bn. The Border to Coast Sterling Investment Grade Credit Fund will launch in 2020 if the board secures the FCA’s approval. This is expected to be the first in a series of fixed income funds that the pool will launch. The trio beat off competition from more than 20 other asset managers to win the mandate. Meanwhile, Brunel Pension Partnership is looking for three to five firms to manage a global sustainable equities fund. The pool is looking to build a portfolio of companies that generate long-term returns and has sustainability at the core of their operations.


Brunel is also looking for asset managers to run a global small cap equity fund. The pool intends to divide the fund, which tar- gets companies with strong ESG integra- tion, between two or three managers. David Cox, Brunel’s head of listed markets, describes small caps as a “phenomenon”. “A long-term approach can translate into impressive returns. In keeping with our overall outlook, individual mandates in this sub-fund will be long-term only,” he added. Fundamental and quantitative managers will be considered for the £365m fund, which will be benchmarked against the MSCI Small Cap World index. Finally, a group of un-named pension schemes have invested £120m in a project to build two of the largest commercial greenhouses in the UK, a deal that will increase food security and help fight cli- mate change.


The properties, which together will cover 10 | portfolio institutional | October 2019 | issue 87


an area equal to the size of 47 football pitches, will reduce the carbon footprint of any produce grown by 75% as they will be warmed using pumps powered by waste heat from water recycling centres. The green houses will be built by Oast- house Ventures near Norwich and Bury St Edmunds. They are expected to be ready by next autumn to welcome the commercial- scale vegetable growers from the UK and the Netherlands who have already commit- ted to leasing the space.


Once operational, the greenhouses will be capable of producing more than one in 10 of the country’s tomatoes. Cucumbers and peppers could also be growing at these sites.


Oasthouse director Andy Allen said this is a world first. “The environmental, social and political benefits of these systems are sig- nificant, and we look forward to further dis- rupting the traditional carbon heavy mod- els of agriculture.”


their terms have come to an end. Executive director Andrew McKinnon has also stood down.


There is also a promotion at the PPF as Kate Jones moves up to senior independent director following the retirement Alan Jenkins.


Defined benefit (DB) pension scheme con- solidator Clara Pensions has added another new face to its senior management team after Steve Groves took a seat on its board. Groves was chosen for his more than 20-year track record in the UK retirement industry. He is the chair at Key Retirement and Retirement Bridge and spent much of his career as chief executive of specialist annuity insurer Partnership where he de-risked final salary schemes. His appointment follows Lawrence Church- ill, formerly of the PPF, agreeing to become chair in September. For more information on Clara read our


Calendar


Upcoming portfolio institutional roundtables:


11 December ESG and fixed income


feature on the consolidators from page 42. Defined benefit (DB) master trust Citrus has appointed Capital Cranfield’s Peter Thompson as its chair of trustees. Thompson, an actuary by training and a former chair of the PLSA, has spent 15 years as a professional trustee, during which he has been involved in several buy-outs. Law Debenture has named Pin-Nee Tang as a director of Pegasus, which provides exec- utive services to pension schemes. Tang is a former director of corporate pen- sions at Lloyds Banking Group and was also once head of pensions at insurance giant Aviva.


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