Subject to approval by unitholders on July 10th, the group will merge its North American Trust into its US Index Trust and its Pacific Growth Trust into the larger Asian Income Trust.
According to a statement from the group, the US Index Trust has a similar risk and return profile to that of the North American Trust but has “a superior long-term track record to date”.
The North American Trust is currently run by Nigel Holland and has been in the fourth quartile of the sector over one, three and five years according to FE Analytics.
In terms of the Pacific Growth Trust, the decision to merge it with the Asian Income Trust reflects a belief that unit holders of the former will benefit from the economies of scale generated by the larger trust as well as from its “more focused approach to investing in mainly Asian securities".
“These changes closely align the core competencies of LGIM to the delivery of best outcomes for our investors. We fully believe it to be in their best interests going forward,” the statement read.
In an unrelated announcement, the group said it has hired three people for its UK distribution team.
Simon Males, who joins from Pramerica Fixed Income, where he was MD of UK institutional client relations, comes in as head of active fixed income distribution. Adam Willis, formerly with MSCI, comes in as head of index distribution and Laura Brown joins the group as head of LDI distribution from Ignis Asset Management where she was head of solutions.
All three are new positions that will report to Mike Walsh, head of UK distribution at LGIM.
Walsh said of the appointments: “We have been fortunate that client demand for LGIM Solutions, combining our Index, Active Fixed Income and LDI capabilities, has seen significant growth over the past three years and we are confident that this will continue as UK pension schemes increasingly focus on endgame solutions.”
