ACCESS Pool reaches £50 billion milestone

Meanwhile, the ACCESS pool has reached £50 billion in pooled assets across its 11 partner LGPS funds.

The pool was boosted by recent market movements, it said in a statement, but also by commitments to private market assets such as real estate and infrastructure in the past few months.

ACCESS said the £50 billion mark was reached through a £1.8 billion total commitment to two new infrastructure funds managed by IFM Investors and J.P. Morgan Asset Management.

It expects to award private equity and private debt mandates by the end of the year, according to a statement.

ACCESS’s platform now houses more than 75% of all assets from the pool’s partner funds.

In a statement, ACCESS highlighted evidence of delivering value for money for partner funds and scheme members through its pooled approach. The pool’s active listed assets have recorded a five-year return of just over 9%, compared to a benchmark of 7.8%.

The pool also cited a cost assessment carried out by ClearGlass that it said demonstrated ACCESS was delivering economies of scale across active and passive listed mandates.

Chris Sier, founder of ClearGlass, said: “Once again the ACCESS pool has shown the effectiveness of its procurement model by achieving over £49 million of fee savings (17 basis points) for its partner funds.”

Kevin McDonald, director of the ACCESS Support Unit, said the progress the pool had made was “exceptional”.

“Importantly, the pool has demonstrated excellent value for money, delivering an enhanced level of savings, combined with investment outperformance and asset class coverage,” he said.

“Looking ahead, ACCESS is well placed to continue to develop the pool and progress will continue.”