February 2010
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Punter Southall has been appointed to provide full services to the trustees of CN Group, for two schemes with 650 members and totalling £21million. The local media business will receive core pension scheme services, including actuarial, administration, benefit consultancy, Trustee secretarial and investment consultancy, for its defined benefit (DB) pension schemes.
The South Yorkshire Pensions Authority has allocated a £300million core credit mandate to Henderson Global Investors. The portfolio, which invests in the Henderson All Stocks Credit Fund, will be managed by Henderson's credit team. The Fund targets outperformance of one per cent against an iBoxx Sterling credit index.
Prudential UK has been appointed as joint Additional Voluntary Contribution (AVC) provider for the Lothian Pension Fund (LPF), which serves local authorities, colleges and other employers in Edinburgh and the Lothians. The potential for AVCs to boost retirement income will be highlighted among the LPF's 32,000 members, and brings Prudential's appointments as AVC provider up to seven out of the 11 Scottish Local Authorities.
Close Fund Services Limited has been awarded a mandate from M&G Investments to provide fund administration services for its new M&G Real Estate Debt Fund. The fund has raised €140million, and will provide investors across Europe with access to mezzanine finance and will look to bridge the gap that has been created by the withdrawal of lenders from the property sector.
Babcock International Group Plc has chosen Friends Provident to administer a single defined contribution pension scheme for its employees who do not have access to the existing defined benefit schemes. The new structure will merge the existing unbundled DC schemes and contract-based schemes into one consolidated arrangement for the UK-wide group.
Russell Investments has been chosen to work with the pension advisory business of National Cash Register (NCR) in a £500million mandate, and also to join a panel of investment consultants advising the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) on specialist projects to supplement existing advisory arrangements. NCR's asset allocation will be widened from its traditional liability driven investment (LDI) and equity mix while improving governance. The PPF panel will see Russell advise on project-based work covering specialist investment advice, new and emerging asset classes, LDI management, strategic and tactical asset allocation advice, portfolio construction and risk budgeting, assessing and monitoring fund managers across an array of asset classes, and advice in transitioning assets.
Hewitt Associates has been chosen by Amey plc to provide all aspects of corporate pensions advice. Kevin Wesbroom and Tony Baily will lead the client relationship with the public service provider, which is involved in infrastructure projects around the UK.
Punter Southall has been appointed to provide full services to the trustees of the Mayborn Group's defined benefit pension scheme. Following a tender exercise, the consulting actuaries and administrators were chosen to provide assistance and support to the tsetse of schemes comprising 300 members and £17million in assets. Gerry Devenney, principal at Punter Southall, will lead the team.
Honda Group UK has chosen Aon Consulting to as administrator and scheme secretary to its final salary pension scheme. The scheme covers more than 5,000 members, and will be managed from Aon's Bristol office. Aon Consulting will take control of the pensioner payroll, scheme accounting and treasury functions.
Marine Harvest (Scotland) Ltd and the Trustees of the Marine Harvest Pension Scheme have selected Xafinity Consulting and Xafinity Paymaster to provide pension administration, actuarial and consultancy services. The mandate, which was previously held by Towers Watson, has been allocated by the largest producer of Smoked Salmon to Xafinity based on Marine Harvest's objectives to provide efficient, effective and cohesive provision of pension administration and pension consultancy services.
Northern Trust has been chosen to provide global custody and investment accounting services to the UK branch of Navigators Insurance company, a subsidiary of The Navigators Group, Inc., valued at around £150million. Northern Trust was appointed for its expertise in servicing insurance assets, and currently provides asset servicing and asset management solutions to more than 120 insurance clients across the globe.
Hewitt has been appointed to provide fully delegated investment consulting services to PPG Industries (UK) Pension Trustees Limited. The UK subsidiary of PPG Industries Inc. has a pension fund with assets of around £162million, and will be provided with Hewitt's fully delegated investment consulting services for all of the company's UK scheme's assets.
Punter Southall has chosen Altus to deliver straight-through processing (STP) for its defined contribution and defined benefit pension administration business, through the Altus Instruction Gateway. The deal covers the full range of Altus product options, including automated dealing, reconciliation and cash settlement.
The Transport for London Pension Fund has appointed J O Hambro Capital Management (JOHCM) to manage a £100million global equity mandate. The appointment, which is in the form of a segregated investment in JOHCM's Global Select strategy, takes the total assets under management in the strategy to around £250million.
Coats plc has appointed Mercer to provide an online hosted compensation management tool, ePRISM PRO®. Mercer will also supply annual market data in support of ongoing process and analysis work to the thread, sewing and needlecraft products provider. The system will allow Coats to manage their market data more effectively, in over 70 countries globally and to their top 500 employees.
DBC Pension Services Limited (DBC) has been chosen to provide full administration and trustee secretarial services to the £12million Mercury Provident Pension Scheme. DBC chief executive, Ralph Meller, said the firm's approach was ideally suited to the Scheme's requirements.
Northern Trust has been appointed by Cordea Savills Investment Management Limited to provide fund accounting, custody and trustee services to its new open-ended UK Income and Growth Fund. The fund has a target size of £1bn, and is aimed at professional investors seeking exposure to core UK property.
FaithShares Advisors LLC has chosen SEI to provide a fully integrated, turnkey solution to support the firm's exchange traded funds (ETFs). The deal will see the use of SEI's integrated ETF solution, which includes a comprehensive suite of back- and middle-office services. It is designed to help investment managers enter the growing ETF market without the need for a large financial commitment.
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