Agenda and minutes

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Contact: Sean O'Neill  01225 395090

Items
No. Item

1.

EMERGENCY EVACUATION PROCEDURE

The Chair will draw attention to the emergency evacuation procedure as set out under Note 9.

 

Minutes:

The Democratic Services Officer read out the procedure.

2.

DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST

At this point in the meeting declarations of interest are received from Members in any of the agenda items under consideration at the meeting. Members are asked to complete the green interest forms circulated to groups in their pre-meetings (which will be announced at the Council Meeting) to indicate:

(a) The agenda item number in which they have an interest to declare.

(b) The nature of their interest.

(c) Whether their interest is a disclosable pecuniary interest or an other interest,  (as defined in Part 2, A and B of the Code of Conduct and Rules for Registration of Interests)

Any Member who needs to clarify any matters relating to the declaration of interests is recommended to seek advice from the Council’s Monitoring Officer or a member of his staff before the meeting to expedite dealing with the item during the meeting.

Minutes:

There were none.

3.

APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE AND SUBSTITUTIONS

To receive any declarations from Members of the Committee and Officers of personal/prejudicial interests in respect of matters for consideration at this meeting, together with their statements on the nature of any such interest declared.

 

Minutes:

There were none.

4.

TO ANNOUNCE ANY URGENT BUSINESS AGREED BY THE CHAIR

Minutes:

There was none.

5.

ITEMS FROM THE PUBLIC - TO RECEIVE DEPUTATIONS, STATEMENTS, PETITIONS OR QUESTIONS

Minutes:

There were none.

6.

ITEMS FROM COUNCILLORS AND CO-OPTED AND ADDED MEMBERS

To deal with any petitions or questions from Councillors and, where appropriate, co-opted and added members.

 

Minutes:

There were none.

7.

MINUTES: 26 FEBRUARY 2014 pdf icon PDF 47 KB

Minutes:

These were approved as a correct record and signed by the Chair.

8.

REVIEW OF INVESTMENT PERFORMANCE FOR PERIODS ENDING 31 DECEMBER 2013 pdf icon PDF 48 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Assistant Investments Manager presented the report. He said that that the quarter ending 31 March 2014 had been a difficult one in some markets. The Fund’s assets had increased by 0.8%. Two managers previously rated amber had been uprated to green, and so no longer appeared in the RAG Summary Report. The implementation of the new investment strategy was substantially complete, as shown in section 4 of the report. The selection meeting for the Infrastructure mandate was planned for July.

 

Mr Finch commented on the JLT report. He said that emerging markets had been negative, while Japan had been significantly negative. There were emerging problems in China. Quantitative easing was to continue longer than expected, so bond yields had picked up. Emerging markets had risen strongly in the three months to the end of May, so the Fund may have been fortunate  with the timing of its investment in these markets. Japan had also picked up after quarter end. In response to a question from a Member on the prospects for China and global growth, Mr Finch commented that there was suspicion about the trustworthiness of Chinese growth figures and the Chinese property market was slowing. The Chinese banks had begun to refuse credit for property. There were still doubts about growth in Europe. Inflation was not picking up. From a global perspective, the UK economy was one of the strongest. He referred to the bar charts on page 26 and the performance table on page 27 of the agenda showing the performance of managers relative to their benchmarks. Nine managers had achieved or surpassed their benchmarks over the past year. Four managers had not met their three year targets and five managers did not yet have a three-year track record. Overall he felt the Fund was near where it should be. He drew attention to the personnel changes within Schroders (page 32) and said that it would be interesting to see the impact of these.

 

A Member said that following the meeting with Signet, she now felt comfortable with their approach, but wondered how long the Fund should be prepared to wait for an improvement in their performance. Mr Finch replied that he had not focussed on Signet in particular, because the whole hedge fund portfolio was being reviewed. The Member said that four months had passed since the meeting with Signet, and she wondered whether the Fund should still be investing in them. The Investments Manager replied that even if the Fund disinvested, a rump of illiquid assets would be left with them, which would need to be managed on an ongoing basis. Signet’s performance will be a focus of the next quarterly performance report.

 

RESOLVED to note the information set out in the report.

9.

HEDGE FUND REVIEW pdf icon PDF 29 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Panel having been satisfied that the public interest would be better served by not disclosing relevant information, RESOLVED that, in accordance with the provisions of Section 100(A)(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, the public be excluded from the meeting for this item of business because of the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in paragraph 3 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Act as amended.

 

The Panel RESOLVED to report its preliminary discussions to the Avon Pension Fund Committee.

 

[Councillors Anketell-Jones and Gilchrist left the meeting at this point.]

 

10.

WORKPLAN pdf icon PDF 35 KB

Minutes:

The Investment Manager presented the Panel’s workplan up to February 2015.

 

RESOLVED to note the workplan.