West Midlands Pension Fund, Wolverhampton, England, picked six managers for a pre-approved list to run an unconstrained, long-only emerging markets equities portfolio initially valued at £830 million ($1.3 billion), or about 8.5% of total assets, according to pension fund spokesman Antony Ellis.
The £9.8 billion pension fund's allocation to frontier and emerging markets was 6% of the total assets as of March 31, 2012, according to the latest available annual report.
The selected managers are AGFIA, F&C Asset Management, Fisher Investments, Investec Asset Management, Martin Currie Investment Management and Mondrian Investment Partners. Three managers will be funded initially, but Mr. Ellis declined to name them. The managers will replace seven existing managers, which Mr. Ellis also declined to name. Additional funding will come from cash.
