The National Grid is to sell Aerion Fund Management, which runs £17.3 billion in pension assets as its principal investment manager, the company announced today.
“The board of trustees of the National Grid UK Pension Scheme has undertaken a thorough review of their investment strategy and of the governance model by which to implement the new strategy most effectively,” the company said in a statement.
“The board of trustees… has undertaken a thorough review of their investment strategy and of the governance model by which to implement the new strategy most effectively.” — National Grid“As part of that review, the trustees have decided to outsource the management of the scheme’s assets through a sale of its captive asset management business, Aerion Fund Management.”
Aerion was originally the pensions investment department of British Gas and was responsible for managing the in-house defined benefit pension scheme. Until today it had maintained this role through the various mergers and demergers of the sponsoring company to become the manager of the National Grid UK Pension Scheme.
However, last month the company announced the fund management CEO, Paul Sharman, had departed.
The move flows somewhat against the tide as pensions—corporate and public—in the UK have been steadily increasing their in-house investment teams.
National Grid said in parallel with outsourcing the management of the scheme’s assets, a small executive team of specialists to support the trustees in active management of the scheme’s assets would be created to maintain “close monitoring of its liabilities and tight control of investment risks”.
National Grid is due to release its latest annual report on May 21.
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