Agenda and minutes

There were no Declarations of Interest on this occasion.

RESOLVED – That the minutes of the Meeting of the Pensions Panel held on 6 June 2017 be confirmed and signed by the Chairman.

 The Director of Finance and Resources submitted a summary of the performance of the Pension Fund, together with a portfolio of the Fund’s investments, as at 30 June 2017.

The Panel were informed that the Fund had a market value of £4.7 billion as at 30 June 2017; the highest reported to date.  Over the quarter the Fund returned 0.5%, slightly underperforming its strategic benchmark by 0.1%. The best performing asset classes relative to their benchmarks were Global Equities and Private Equity but these were offset by UK Equity, Property and Hedge Funds which delivered marginal underperformances, relative to benchmark, this quarter.

Despite the small underperformance over the quarter, in the longer term the Fund was still outperforming its strategic benchmark. Annualised returns over the 3 and 5 year time periods were in excess of 11% per annum, which was well above the investment return assumptions used by the Actuary as part of the triennial valuation.

In response to a question from Mr Davis, Mr Potter indicated that, although some members of the Monetary Policy Committee had started to vote for a rise, it was considered unlikely that the Bank of England would make any changes to the base interest rate of 0.25% in the very near future.

RESOLVED – That the Pension Fund Investment performance and the portfolio of investments for the quarter ended 30 June 2017 be noted.

5 December 2017

6 March 2018

All meetings are scheduled to start at 9.30am at County Buildings, Stafford unless indicated otherwise.

·         5 December 2017

·         6 March 2018

All meetings are scheduled to start at 9.30am at County Buildings, Stafford.

RESOLVED - That the public be excluded from the meeting for the following items of business which involve the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in the paragraph of Part One of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972 (as amended) indicated below.

PART TWO

The Panel then proceeded to consider reports on the following issues:

(Exemption paragraph 3)

(Exemption paragraph 3)

(Exemption paragraph 3)

(Report of Portfolio Evaluation for the quarter ended 30 June 2017 enclosed for information)

(Exemption paragraph 3)

(Exemption paragraph 3)

Oral update by the Director of Finance and Resources

(Exemption paragraph 3)

(Exemption paragraph 3)

(Exemption paragraph 3)

Report of the Director of Finance and Resources

(Exemption paragraph 3)

Report of the Director of Finance and Resources

(Exemption paragraph 3)

a)            Highbridge Capital Management (UK) Ltd

  Private Debt manager

b)            Alcentra Limited

Private Debt manager

(Exemption paragraph 3)

a)           Highbridge Capital Management (UK) Ltd

b)           Alcentra Limited