JLT manager search service proves its worth to Dorset

Dorset County Pension Fund has used a new manager selection service to appoint Insight Investment for a £150 million inflation protection mandate.

The mandate is believed to be one of the first by a local authority pension fund for inflation-only protection of its liabilities. The JLT Investment Solutions’ Search Work on Investment Managers (SWIM) service was used by Dorset for the appointment. This follows the appointment of Aviva Investors for a real estate mandate by Devon County Council using the same service from JLT, which reduces manager search costs for pension funds.

Dorset’s Nick Buckland commented on the appointment: “This was a particularly complex mandate to put into place, which raised challenges in the education of our pension fund committee and it highlighted the importance of ensuring the committee understood the issues surrounding this strategy. The SWIM process provides a robust and flexible approach to the manager selection process and we have been pleased with our appointment of Insight on this occasion.”

JLT Investment Solutions director, John Finch, said: “Although we have seen a small number of LGPS funds adopting some form of liability protection, this is the first time that this has been done on an inflationonly basis. This will potentially provide the Dorset County Pension Fund, its members and local taxpayers greater future surety.” And Insight Investment chief investment officer (solutions), Andrew Giles, said: “We are delighted that the Dorset Pension Fund committee has selected Insight to take responsibility for their liability risk management mandate. We see Dorset as very much in the vanguard of public sector schemes in this area and we look forward to working with the pension fund committee, the officers and JLT as they embark on this crucial element of their overall funding strategy.”