Agenda item

The Committee noted and discussed the update.

            The update on pooling was presented by Mr Latham, the Head of the Pension Fund, highlighting the following key points:

-       The Fund originally wrote to WPP to request an Active Sustainable Equity fund, and all 8 funds in Wales would now be making investments to this. The fund was expected to go live in April 2023, meaning that the impact of the Fund’s proposed 15% allocation would not come into effect until after the March 2023 TCFD reporting date, and would therefore not be reported on until September 2024 based on the data as at March 2024.

-       There had been no update regard the Link Fund Solutions Ltd matters since the last Committee discussion. Should the Host Authority provide a further update, this information would be forwarded to the Committee.

-       The WPP’s current focus was on procurement of the operator contract. Mr Latham and Mrs Fielder will be attending engagement days with interested parties in Cardiff, along with meeting potential WPP property managers.

-       Regarding Private Markets, the commitments for Private Credit, Private Equity and Infrastructure would to be ready to go next year. Considerations were being made on how to manage the cost of this. The intention was to use Mercer for the Impact Portfolio, until an equivalent becomes available within the WPP.

-       WPP training would be taking place on 27 February covering several of the matters discussed at this meeting, and the invitation was extended to all Committee and Board members.

            Regarding the stock lending policy, Mr Hibbert commented on the clarification that WPP are able to lend up to 95% of any stock, for a fee. Mr Hibbert asked if there is any intention to prevent lending out stock over the voting period so they could be recalled. He also noted that the amount of shares voted in the Robeco report seemed extremely low, and requested an explanation for this.

            With respect to Mr Hibbert’s second question regarding the amount of shares voted, Mr Latham confirmed he would look into this. Regarding the stock lending question, Mr Latham explained that representatives of the Fund attended a training session on stock lending, which was open to JGC members only. He expected this would lead to a report going to the WPP JGC on stock lending, covering the points Mr Hibbert raised on recalling stock for voting purposes. Mr Latham assumed the position of the Fund would be to recall those stocks and be able to vote on them, but asked the Chair, who had also attended the training, to confirm this, which he did. 

            Mr Hibbert commented that he was pleased to see progress being made on this matter. Mr Hibbert asked about the Committee’s previous agreement to write to Robeco regarding their voting on companies in the petrochemical industry carrying out exploration in order to maximise profits, and asked whether this had been sent. Mrs Fielder noted that this had not been done as yet, as she had been waiting for Mr Hibbert to clarify the exact wording of the question to pass on to Robeco. Mr Hibbert confirmed this was included in the previous report.

RESOLVED:

The Committee noted and discussed the update.