Issue - meetings

(a)       The Committee considered and noted the update; and

(b)       The Committee received the presentation from the WPP Operator and Investment Manager.

At the last Joint Governance Committee (“JGC”), it was agreed to extend the contract with Link’s Fund Solutions’ Operator to December 2024. Mr Latham added that progress was made regarding the appointment of the co-opted member representative to the JGC and this should be in place by the next JGC in June 2022. 

Mr Latham explained that the WPP business plan would not be published in time for the March 2022 Committee but would be available at the June 2022 Committee. In addition, the Government are due to release a consultation on guidance on LGPS asset pooling in summer 2022.

Mrs Fielder confirmed that presentations from short listed candidates for the appointment of Private Market “allocators” were to take place in Cardiff the following week. The role of the allocators would be to select the “best in class” private market managers across separate asset classes. The tender for the appointment of a Private Equity Allocator was anticipated to start in April 2022.

Mr Gough introduced himself as senior relationship manager for Link Fund Solutions and ran through the presentation. He informed the Committee that Link Fund Solutions were expected to be sold to a third party called Dye & Durham but believed this would have no day-to-day impact on the WPP. He noted that the entity would have a clear plan and he was looking forward to what was to come.

Mrs McWilliam asked whether this was a risk for the Fund. Mr Gough believed that it was not a major risk but would keep the Committee up to date as this matter progresses. Mr Latham confirmed that the Officer Working Group (“OWP”) and JGC are monitoring any risk associated with this.

            Mr Gough presented the structure of the WPP investments from page 123 and the current investments for the Fund within the WPP on page 124.  Overall, the WPP had total assets under management of c£10.5 billion as shown on page 125.

Mr Quinn introduced himself as associate director and Mr Pearce as the senior portfolio manager at Russell Investments.

Mr Pearce noted the following key points on this item of the agenda:

-       Russell Investment have research analysts around the world and their manager research pulls together investment managers and regional specialists.

-       Page 128 outlined the market performance trends since the inception of WPP’s portfolios. The dotted black line in the middle of the graph was the WPP Global Opportunity Equity Fund. The orange line on the graph represented growth. Mr Pearce said that particular styles of investing often have very big outperformance but over time there will be mean reversion i.e. where growth will come back towards the other styles.

-       A breakdown of the WPP Global Opportunities Equity Fund was presented on page 129. Mr Pearce added that a new manager in Japan was introduced in December 2021 called Nissay which replaced NWQ.  He confirmed that they would continue to exit NWQ carefully until all exposure in Japan is with the other specialist manager.

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