Strathclyde Pension Fund, Glasgow, hired AllianceBernstein, INVESCO Perpetual, Edinburgh Partners and Lazard to run an undetermined amount in unconstrained global equity strategies, said Bill Kirk, senior pensions officer for the £8.9 billion ($17.3 billion) fund. Funding will probably come from terminating a £1.4 billion active multiasset mandate managed by Schroders, according to sources who declined to be identified.
"One of the recommendations from a recent review of the investment strategy was that the fund should accommodate unconstrained, long-only global equity mandates in its structure," David Crum, Strathclyde's chief pensions officer of investments, said in a statement. "The rationale behind this recommendation was to 'free' investment managers from a benchmark-driven mindset, to allow asset managers to populate a portfolio with their best investment ideas, and to hold stocks which they wanted to own — as opposed to having to own (stocks) to manage risk relative to a benchmark index."
Hymans Robertson assisted.