Brunel saves £34 million for member funds

Brunel Pension Partnership has revealed that it has saved £34 million for partner funds last year as it highlighted the increased opportunities for stewardship, diversification and climate analysis.

By reducing investment costs, including using its greater scale to negotiate better fees from fund managers, considerable tax and other savings were made over the course of the year for Brunel’s client funds, according to the investment pool’s 2019/20 annual report. For example, the property fund has saved several million pounds already, it said.

Brunel transitioned almost £20 billion of assets from its 10 member funds and remains on track to complete most of the remaining transitions in 2021, despite the global pandemic and its resulting lockdowns.

The report also highlighted the pool’s target to improve the carbon intensity of portfolios by 7% each year until 2022, and to create its own responsible investments benchmarks.

Laura Chappell, chief executive at Brunel Pension Partnership, said: “LGPS pooling has enabled not just immense cost savings, but also broader benefits that were not available pre-pooling, including opportunities for stewardship, diversification and enhanced climate risk analysis.”

“Brunel’s experience in managing and voting on climate-related risks, combined with our strong financial standing, puts us in a unique position to drive climate policy,” she added.