Norfolk County Council Pension Fund, Norwich, England, hired 13 providers to join a new multiprovider framework agreement for stewardship advisory services including voting and engagement, Nigel Keogh, national local government pension scheme frameworks operations and development manager for the council, said in an email.
The £2.9 billion ($3.6 billion) pension fund launched a search for providers to join the new framework for itself and on behalf of 10 other U.K. pension funds with £53.5 billion in combined assets in June. The other funds are the Environment Agency; London Borough of Hackney; Bradford Metropolitan District Council; Lancashire County Council Pension Fund; Lincolnshire County Council Pension Fund; Nottinghamshire County Council; Suffolk County Council Pension Fund; Wirral Borough Council; Wolverhampton City Council; and the City of Edinburgh Council.
The hires have been split into five contracts, said a notice filed with European procurement website Tenders Electronic Daily. For voting services, the pension funds hired GES International, Glass Lewis, Manifest Information Services, Pensions & Investment Research Consultants and Robeco Institutional Asset Management.
GES, Pension & Investment Research Consultant and Robeco were also chosen for engagement services, alongside F&C Investments, Ethical Investment Research Services and Hermes Equity Ownership Services.
The third contract is for the provision of voting and engagement services, with F&C, GES, Hermes EOS, Pension & Investment Research Consultants and Robeco hired.
Stewardship research and data services will be provided by Ethical Investment Research Services, FTSE Russell, MSCI ESG Research, oekom research and Sustainalytics.
Ethical Investment Research Services, Manifest Information Services, oekom research, Pension & Investment Research Consultants and Sustainalytics were also chosen to provide stewardship-related project services, as well as Mercer.
