(June 21, 2012) — A major UK insurance company has appointed a senior pension fund professional to oversee its investment strategy as the trend to take control of assets internally gathers pace.
Wendy Mayall has joined LV= as chief investment officer with responsibility for around £8 billion in assets, the company announced today. LV= is the rebrand for Liverpool Victoria, the UK’s largest friendly society, offering insurance, pension and investment products.
In this new role she will be responsible for all elements of LV=’s investment strategy across the company’s diverse business areas and will oversee the relationship with Threadneedle Investments, which overtook the management of the society’s assets last year. The company outsourced its asset management arm, but has recaptured overall strategic control with this new role.
Mayall had previously run the biggest fund within Unilever’s pension plan and was responsible for setting up the first multinational vehicle to pool funds globally, the hedge fund-of-funds and numerous equity multi-manager vehicles. She left the fund last year for a brief stint at fiduciary managers and consultants Stamford Associates.
Philip Moore, Group Financial Director at LV=, said: “This is an important role within LV= so I am delighted that someone of Wendy’s calibre is joining us. Wendy will join my senior team and play a key part in ensuring our investment performance is strong and our members can continue to enjoy market-leading returns on their investment products.”
The announcement comes a day after aiCIO exclusively revealed fellow UK insurer Aviva had appointed Ian McKinlay to run its pension fund assets worth over £10 billion.
The trend to appoint a key professional or team to take responsibility for investment strategy and asset manager relationships has been gathering pace since the financial crisis.
Large pension funds, insurers and other large asset pools in Europe have been recruiting experienced staff to create internal teams that can swiftly react to changes in the market and whose interests are better aligned to those set to eventually benefit from the assets.
For an in-depth study on this trend see the upcoming issue of aiCIO, out next week.