JLT Benefit Solutions (JLT) wins Lincs County Pension Fund Alternatives Portfolio Search

The local authority team at JLT Benefit Solutions (JLT) has been appointed by the Lincolnshire County Council Pension Fund to assist them in a forthcoming search for a manager of a portfolio of alternatives, estimated at around £150m, as part of the JLT SWIM (Search Work on Investment Managers) service.

This service, which is run by JLT’s Investment Consulting team, provides a full manager search service for public sector funds, from the initial OJEU (Official Journal of the European Union) notice through to appointment and implementation of the mandate change, including combination analysis to consider the potential diversification benefits of including any of the potential fund managers in combination with each other, or within the framework of the existing Pension Fund assets.

This is the second Local Authority appointment to follow the sale of HSBC Actuaries and Consultants Limited to JLT at the end of 2009, demonstrating broader industry comfort with the merger.as the new, larger company continues successfully to grow its client base and range of services and consolidates its position as one of the four largest consultants in the UK. JLT now works on behalf of eight local authority pension schemes in the UK.

Leading the project on behalf of JLT will be Head of Research, Dave Lyons, who commented: “We are delighted to be assisting Lincolnshire on this specialist project.  In addition to the analytical and research skills used in previous search projects, this search will also incorporate stochastic ‘forward looking’ analysis, in recognition of the complexity of this specific mandate.”

Mrs Jo Ray, Financial Advisor – Pensions & Investments for Lincolnshire County Council, added: “With the recent Global Equity search completed using the SWIM service, we were keen to continue with the same team for the alternatives search. 

We were particularly pleased with the results of the combination analysis, which not only helped in understanding the best “fit” of different investment managers with each other, but also where making the wrong investment combinations could potentially negatively impact on each individual manager’s potential contribution to the Fund’s objectives.  ”

Expected to commence at the beginning of April, details of the search and how to apply will be published in line with official procedure through the Official Journal of the European Union.