Wales Pension Fund

About Us

The Wales Pension Partnership (WPP) was established in 2017. The WPP is a collaboration of the eight LGPS funds (Constituent Authorities) covering the whole of Wales and is one of eight national Local Government Pension pools.

We have a long, successful history of collaboration, including examples that pre-date the Government’s pooling initiative. We are proud of our unique identity as a Pool – our Constituent Authorities represent and span the entirety of Wales. Being democratically accountable means we provide the best of strong public sector governance and transparency.

Our operating model is designed to be flexible and deliver value for money. We appointed an external Operator and make use of external advisers to bring best of breed expertise to support the running of the Pool. The Operator is Waystone Management (UK) Limited and they have partnered with Russell Investments to manage the investments and assist in the reduction of investment management costs for all the Constituent Authorities.

We have a clear vision and are in control of the pace we take to ensure we meet our goals.

Latest Notices

Latest News

Monday 01 July 2024

Waystone Management (UK) Limited is re-appointed as the Wales Pension Partnership operator

The Wales Pension Partnership (WPP) is pleased to announce the re-appointment of Waystone Management (UK) Limited (Waystone) as its pool operator. The re-appointment of Waystone as the FCA authorised operator follows a rigorous procurement process run by the WPP and its advisors, Hymans Robertson and Burges Salmon.

All 8 Constituent Authorities in Wales are already jointly invested in £13bn (as at end of March 2024) of pooled assets with Waystone across a range of investment strategies.

Waystone, which is the largest independent Authorised Corporate Director (ACD) in the UK, will continue to operate an Authorised Contractual Scheme (ACS; a tax efficient UK collective investment vehicle) on behalf of the WPP. The ACS has ten sub-funds across equities and fixed income that meet the needs of the Authorities, enabling them to execute their respective asset allocation strategies. With the support of Russell Investments, Waystone will continue to deliver significant fee savings.

Chris Moore, Director of Corporate Services at Carmarthenshire County Council, commented ’As the host authority for WPP we are delighted that Waystone was successful again and look forward to continue working with the team’.

Karl Midl, Country Head, United Kingdom, said: “We are delighted to have been reappointed to act as Operator to the ACS for the benefit of the WPP’s investment pool. Our continued partnership is testament to the exceptional service our team has provided over the last six and a half years, and we look forward to continuing to support the WPP’s needs as they too continue to evolve and grow.”

Rachel Wheeler, Global Product Head of Regulated Fund Solutions, said: “As the largest player in the UK market, we bring unparalleled operational resilience, ensuring robust services for our clients. We have a long and successful history of collaboration with the WPP and we’re excited to explore new opportunities for expanding our partnership in the years to come.”

Signatory to the UK Stewardship Code

We are delighted to announce that the Wales Pension Partnership (WPP) remains a signatory to the UK Stewardship Code.

https://www.frc.org.uk/investors/uk-stewardship-code/uk-stewardship-code-signatories

The 2020 UK Stewardship Code sets a high bar for stewardship, a standard which the Wales Pension Partnership (WPP) seeks to meet through its approach to responsible investment (RI). We are therefore delighted to have retained our signatory status for 2023.

A key focus of our work over the year was the development of new Sub-Funds, including our Sustainable Active Equity Sub-Fund, which we launched in July 2023. We also broadened our fund range through the appointment of private-markets allocators across private debt, infrastructure and private equity asset classes, and we were also pleased to extend our low-carbon overlay to our UK Opportunities Sub-Fund.

Stewardship of our assets is also critical, working closely with both Robeco and Russell Investments to ensure our voice is being heard. On our behalf, Robeco voted on more than 15,000 resolutions and undertook over 200 corporate engagements across 20 separate themes. To facilitate our stewardship, we developed an updated Stewardship Framework, which provides additional focus on the themes and topics of interest to our members.

While we are pleased with how far we have come this year, we recognise that there is still much more to do. Over recent months, we have progressed work on an escalation strategy, further considered how we can better evolve stewardship within our passive allocations and updated our stock-lending policy to ensure that we vote on the entirety of our shareholdings. We also completed our inaugural All-Wales Climate Report, which we expect to publish shortly.

We remain proud of our identity as a pool, where we will continue to evolve in collaboration with all eight Constituent Authorities within Wales – and the members of their pension schemes – to be effective stewards of their assets.