Border to Coast, the UK’s largest local government pension scheme (LGPS) pool, has pooled 83% of its 11 partner funds’ assets.
This puts the pool on target for chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s aim for all LGPS funds to be 100% pooled by March 2025.
Border to Coast’s annual report also revealed that collective net savings are on track to reach £340m by 2030.
The investment cost savings that pooling offers schemes was a key tenet behind the government launching the eight pools in 2015.
In total, nearly £50bn of assets are in pooled vehicles either operated directly, or overseen, by Border to Coast, with more than 130 people focused on delivering investments for its 11 partner funds.
Border to Coast also offers a range of investment opportunities that would please Hunt: including its £12bn private markets strategy, which is investing more than £4.3bn in infrastructure and £3bn in private equity.
With seemingly a nod to Hunt’s call for pension funds to invest more in high growth companies and infrastructure, Rachel Elwell, Border to Coast’s chief executive, said: “We have built a range of innovative and high-quality investment propositions, and our £12bn private markets programme is delivering significant investment into growth capital and infrastructure.”
Border to Coast is not stopping there, however.
This will be followed up by a new ‘UK Opportunities’ strategy to provide partner funds with additional opportunities to invest in private market assets across the UK, such as venture and growth capital.
Elwell said the UK Opportunities strategy “will facilitate investment leading to the generation of a range of positive local impacts, such as new jobs, infrastructure and economic growth across the regions of the UK, while providing returns to fund pension obligations”.
Border to Coast will soon share its experience of pooling with the government as part of its consultation on the future of the LGPS.
On its trajectory of travel as a pool, Chris Hitchen, chair of Border to Coast, said: “Five years into our journey, we are exceeding the original ambitions for pooling.”
In addition, research by asset management data specialist ClearGlass Analytics into value for money, ranked Border to Coast number one in its efficiency scheme index of more than 1,000 pension schemes.
The analysis showed this position is due to Border to Coast’s ‘scale, governance and its blend of internal and external management’.
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