Brunel Pension Partnership, Bristol, England, hired State Street as administrator and custodian.
A news release by the £28 billion ($38 billion) Brunel, which was created to run the assets of 10 local government pension scheme funds under new investment regulations, said State Street will be the sole provider of services including custody, fund accounting, performance measurement and foreign exchange. The firm will also provide data, risk, and environmental, social and governance analytics.
State Street will also provide custody and administration services directly to the 10 LGPS clients of Brunel, with all assets set to transition to the custodian starting in November.
Helen Cusins, project manager at Brunel, confirmed in an email there is a contract with Brunel Pension Partnership and State Street, and separate contracts with the 10 LGPS funds.
"We are delighted after a highly competitive and robust procurement to appoint State Street, and we have already established areas where we can work strategically together to increase our value add to our clients including client reporting, risk management and transparency," said Dawn Turner, CEO at Brunel, in the release. "The partnership we will have on integrating ESG reporting into State Street systems is very exciting."
In the same release, Brunel also announced a number of appointments. Nine people will transfer from existing pension funds to Brunel, and six further external appointments have been made.
Three of the appointments are to senior roles. Matthew Trebilcock was named client relationship director. Mr. Trebilcock joins in October from the £1.7 billion Cornwall Pension Fund, Truro, where he is investment manager.
Faith Ward was named chief responsible investment officer, joining in November from the £2.7 billion Environment Agency Pension Fund, Bristol, where she is chief responsible investment and risk officer.
David Anthony joins in December as head of finance and corporate services from the £2 billion Wiltshire Pension Fund, where he is head of pensions.
Further recruitment is underway, with the priority to appoint a head of private markets, said the release. Brunel will also search for another investment principal of private markets, senior investment officer and three investment officers to join the investment team. It will also appoint a client relationship officer, investment operations officer and a business planner for the client relationship and operations teams.
Brunel Pension Partnership was launched to oversee investments for the Avon, Buckinghamshire, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Environment Agency, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Somerset and Wiltshire pension funds after the U.K. government asked the 89 local government pension schemes in England and Wales to pool their pension assets.
