On the go: The circa £12bn National Grid UK Pension Scheme has appointed Russell Investments as its outsourced investment manager.
A joint statement between Russell Investments and National Grid read: “We can confirm that National Grid UK Pension Scheme and Russell Investments are in the early stages of implementing an outsourced investment solution for the National Grid UK Pension Scheme.”
Further updates on this partnership will be revealed in due course, the parties stated.
Elsewhere, the scheme sponsor’s latest annual report revealed that Covid-19 had a limited impact on the scheme.
“Our UK [defined benefit] plans operate low-risk investment strategies with limited exposure to equities and other return-seeking assets, reducing the impact of investment volatility.
"Additionally, the large allocation to bonds leads to significant hedging against changes in the value of DB obligations that result from falling bond yields," the report stated.
The National Grid UK Pension Scheme consists of two legally and actuarially separate sections: section A and section B. At the latest full actuarial valuation, section A was 101 per cent funded with a surplus of £49m, while section B was 99 per cent funded with a deficit of £66m.
To recover the deficit, National Grid paid recovery plan payments of approximately £34m a year over two years to September 2020, the report added.
This article originally appeared on MandateWire.com
