Royal London is celebrating £1bn assets under management in its market-leading Governed Retirement Income Portfolios (GRIPs) range, which was launched in August 2012. This milestone was achieved at the end of January 2017 and reflects the fact that over 50 per cent of Royal London’s drawdown customers are choosing to invest in the GRIPs range. The GRIPs are a range of five multi asset portfolios which come with ongoing governance, automatic rebalancing and dynamic asset allocation, specifically designed for customers in drawdown, who are taking a regular income from their fund.

Nottinghamshire County Council Pension Fund has awarded Kames Capital a £300m buy and hold fixed income mandate. The mandate will be invested in a portfolio of corporate bonds with a target yield of LIBOR +1.25 per cent after fees with the aim of providing periodic cash flow to meet the Nottinghamshire’s planned commitments to infrastructure over the next five years. Commenting on the investment, Nottinghamshire County Council Pension Fund group manager of finance Keith Palframan said: “We have made a long-term commitment to infrastructure and plan to make staged investments from March 2018 to the end of 2021. Kames Capital has created a customised corporate bond portfolio to meet our objectives for liquidity, security and performance over this period.”

SL Capital Partners, a Standard Life Investments company, has announced the final close of its inaugural infrastructure fund, SL Capital Infrastructure Fund I. The fund secured £516m of commitments, ahead of its initial £400m target, from a diverse cross section of financial institutions, local authority pension funds and family office investors from the UK, Europe and North America. Standard Life was a significant supporter, backing infrastructure investment across the UK and Europe. The team, led by Dominic Helmsley, targets direct investment in mid-market core infrastructure transactions in the UK and north-west Europe. The fund has an attractive structure that offers long-term infrastructure returns, working in close alignment with investors.

MSCI has announced the launch of its new ESG Universal Indexes for long-term global investors. The indexes have been designed to help long term investors who want to enhance their exposure to ESG while maintaining a broad and diverse universe of equities to invest in. The indexes utilise strategic tilting in order to recognise and incentivise companies that are making large positive shifts up ESG rankings, not just those which already possess high ESG scores, thereby minimising exclusions and maximising the investible universe.

Brooks Macdonald, Brewin Dolphin, Investec Wealth & Investment, Quilter Cheviot and Rathbones have announced the launch of a landmark industry partnership - the DFM Alliance. The DFM Alliance has been created to offer financial advisers a platform for improving client outcomes through information, education and collaboration. The DFM Alliance whose members have combined discretionary assets under management of over £130bn, will run a range of initiatives for advisers, the first of which will be a number of free structured CPD conferences in June 2017 in the north and south of England.

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