Agenda item

Before discussing Exempt Appendix 3, Members are invited to pass the following resolution

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

[Shirley Marsh left the meeting.]

The Assistant Investments Manager introduced this item.

He asked Members to note two changes to the reports. In Appendix 1 an extra column had been added for currency hedging to make it more transparent and in Exempt Appendix 3 three years of performance data had been added to facilitate the monitoring of changes over time.

He said that it had been quite a challenging quarter for managers in terms of absolute returns and relative performance. Schroders global equity and Standard Life are underperforming their three-year targets. IFM had drawn down $195m of the Fund’s $300m commitment. All active managers were underweight in oil and gas. This will be picked up in the next SRI review.

A Member said that she had asked Unigestion a question at their last meeting with the Panel about their investments in oil and gas. At a conference last week they said that they had reviewed their framework and were disinvesting from two stocks to reduce their carbon risk, and that the review had been prompted by her question. The Assistant Investments Manager said that managers value feedback on how they are addressing issues – another example being the questions the Fund raised with managers recently about the funding of terrorism.

Mr Turner commented on the Mercer performance report.

RESOLVED

1. That there were no issues to be notified to the Committee.

2. To note the information as set out in the reports.