The Wales Pension Partnership (WPP), a collaboration of the eight Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) funds in Wales, has awarded Schroders Capital a £500m private equity mandate.

The global private equity segregated mandate is expected to have a global investment focus, allocating across a number of industries including healthcare and technology encompassing primaries, co-investments and secondaries within multiple sectors.

According to WPP, the appointment was made following a “rigorous and competitive” procurement process run by WPP alongside bfinance and aims to enable the WPP’s underlying authorities to benefit from an asset class that has traditionally been difficult for LGPS funds to access in a cost-efficient manner.

The mandate also builds on Schroders Capital’s growing private assets investment across the UK institutional pensions space, having been appointed by Nest to manage its private equity allocation last year.

Commenting on the appointment, Carmarthenshire County Council director of corporate services, Chris Moore, stated: “Private equity has been an important holding for the WPP Constituent Authorities but has historically been challenging to access in a cost-effective manner. Pooling offers the opportunity to address this.

“We look forward to working with our newly appointed partners to meet this challenge and deliver efficient, effective and impactful private equity investment for the long term.”

Adding to this, Schroders Capital head of private equity investments, Tim Creed, stated: “Schroders Capital has a long-standing investment expertise and history of robust performance and we will be committed to identifying and delivering investment performance in partnership with WPP.”

Schroders private assets business development director, Paul Myles, stated: “We look forward to building on our existing relationships with many of the Welsh LGPS and working with WPP to offer a private equity portfolio that aligns with their financial return requirement and at the same time incorporates a robust responsible investment framework to ensure the portfolio meets WPP’s requirements not only today but for many years into the future.”

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