Investors

Schroders wins £135m multi-manager mandate

The London-based manager has won a mandate from the pension scheme of Boots, the retailer which KKR recently sold to Walgreens of the US.

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Boots Pension Scheme has awarded Schroder Property with a £135 million (€169 million; $210 million) multi-manager contract to filter money into UK property, including opportunistic funds.

Boots Pension, which is a scheme for employees of Boots Alliance, the retailer that has just been sold by private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts to American chemist chain Walgreens, is seeking diversified exposure to the UK property market through investing in selected core, value-added and opportunistic vehicles, said Schroders today.

Graeme Rutter, co-head of property multi-manager at Schroders described Boots Pension as “one of the leading UK corporate pension schemes”. He said: “Our scale has given us the ability to offer portfolio solutions and access manager talent in a way that is impossible for smaller advisors.”

William Hill, Schroders head of property, stressed the importance of the multi-manager business that was launched in 1997. There are £2.5 billion of assets within the platform reflecting a quarter of the £10.2 billion of its total property assets under management.

The announcement comes on the back of two other notable real estate asset management mandates from pension funds that have come in quick succession.

London-based Orchard Street Investment Management won a mandate to provide real estate investment advice to the BBC Pension Fund in the UK, disclosed last week.

Orchard will take over the management of the £300 million (€373 million; $470 million) UK portion of the BBC pension’s £1.1 billion real estate portfolio from present incumbent, CBRE. More than half of the fund’s real estate investments are in the UK with the rest being in Continental Europe and the US.

Before the Orchard Street announcement, Aberdeen Asset Management said it had won a mandate to manage the direct property portfolio of a Danish charitable foundation. The company announced the contract win to manage €170 million of real estate for Aage V. Jens.