News: West Mids makes bold asset switch.

Pensions Week, June, 2009

Byline: David Rowley

The West Midlands Pensions Fund has made a radical change to its asset allocation in a bid to boost the efficiency of its portfolio.

Judy Saunders, investment officer at the fund, told the NAPF local authority conference that the fund was making significant investments in nine hedge funds and absolute return funds as a diversifier away from the risk of its 60% allocation to equities.

She added that market turmoil had "accelerated" these changes.

The fund's equities allocation has been vastly diversified also, with UK equities reduced to only 14% of the new overall fund allocation (41% in 2004), 10% going to private equity and 5.5% to a new emerging and frontier markets allocation.

The asset mix has...

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