Issue - meetings

To consider the report

DECISION

To accept and note the information

The Investment Manager submitted a report, providing a formal update to members on the developments of the Wales Pension Partnership (WPP). It was reported that the collaboration continued to go from strength to strength since it had been established in 2017 and by 31 March 2021, 81% of Gwynedd's fund had been pooled with the WPP. It was noted that the performance was 'very satisfactory' with a number of developments in the pipeline, including the transfer of a proportion of Emerging Markets from Fidelity to the WPP fund. This would bring the total of Gwynedd's pooled investments to 83%.

It was noted that the Fund was performing substantially higher than the benchmark on a regular basis; that the Investment Panel meetings were a good opportunity to question and challenge Managers; and although the Covid situation had been a global crisis, markets were performing strongly.

The next step in the process would be to look at the options of pooling assets to the Private Market category, which was being undertaken with the support of Hymans Robertson, with ongoing discussions taking place to determine the appropriate structure and mechanism to invest in. It was reported that a specialist appointing advisor had been appointed to assist WPP to appoint suitable investment managers to manage the private markets allocation and that a further tender had been released to appoint a suitable manager for infrastructure and private debt.

In the context of a member representative on the Joint Governance Committee, it was noted that each constituent authority was currently submitting amendments to the Inter-Authority Agreement which required the approval of each Full Council - the amendments were approved by Gwynedd Council on 7 October 2021.

Gratitude was expressed for the report and to all staff associated with the work

The Chair noted that the WPP was a successful and effective fund with very acceptable returns. It was reiterated that the position of the Wales fund, compared to others across the UK, was very strong and that the good collaboration was an obvious part of the success.

During the ensuing discussion, the following observations were made by members:

·         That the report noted performance that was 'safonol iawn' in the Welsh version, but noted ‘very satisfactory’ in English, which appeared to be a better description of the situation / performance - need to reconsider the Welsh turn of phrase.

·         That the transfers to date had been very encouraging - the remaining transfers would pose the greatest challenges.

RESOLVED

To accept and note the information