30/03/2011 Author: Shannon Hawthorne

Flintshire ups hedge fund spend by 8%

The pension fund for Flintshire County Council has allocated an additional 8% to hedge fund strategies, HFMWeek has learned.

The £1bn ($1.6bn) Clwyd pension fund has hired BlueCrest for a new 3% macro tactical asset allocation mandate, and Duet for a new 5% long/short equity mandate, which the pension fund has classified as “active global equities”.

The new mandates are expected to be funded by 1 April, pension fund manager Philip Latham told HFMWeek. “We are looking forward a combination of diversification, good returns, and lower volatility,” he said.

The pension fund issued a tender for two absolute return vehicles in September last year, as revealed by HFMWeek at the time, following an investment strategy review.

The tender stated that the fund was looking to award one mandate to “dynamic asset allocation, global

macro and macro fund of funds products or appropriate absolute return strategies,” and another to unconstrained global equity.

Clwyd already allocates 5% to two funds of hedge funds (FoHFs), Liongate and SSARIS, which were hired to replace the fund’s previous FoHF managers Blackrock and Pioneer; however, the new allocations will not count towards the fund’s hedge fund portfolio, but rather, global equities and tactical asset allocation.The pension fund for Flintshire County Council has allocated an additional 8% to hedge fund strategies, HFMWeek has learned.