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Rachel Reeves will launch an initiative next week with 20 of the UK’s largest pension funds to encourage easier investment in Britain in a move to replicate Canada’s so-called ‘Maple 8’ model.
The Sterling 20 initiative will try to make it more seamless for pension funds to back British infrastructure and growth projects, and stems from the chancellor’s desire to mimic Canada’s powerful pension investment model.
The organisations joining forces in Sterling 20 include the Universities Superannuation Scheme, Legal & General, People’s Pension, the Pension Protection Fund, Pensions Insurance Corporation, NatWest Cushon, Pensions UK, Rothesay and Mercer, according to three people familiar with the talks.
Between them the pension funds have around £3tn of cumulative assets under management. It is expected that local government pension funds will also join in the spring.
Two people familiar with the talks questioned the wisdom of billing the initiative as Sterling 20, given that NatWest Cushon has been put up for sale by the high street lender and could be bought out by a rival — meaning there could only be 19 in a matter of months.
The scheme, which is being led by the City of London Corporation alongside the Treasury, is hoping to make it more attractive for international investors to also back regional infrastructure projects by showing “there is British skin in the game too”, according to two other people familiar with the talks.
The Sterling 20 initiative follows on from the Mansion House Accord, a voluntary commitment earlier this year from 17 of the UK’s largest pension providers to invest at least 5 per cent of default fund assets in UK private markets by 2030. This new move will try to plot the ways that funds will be better matched to UK investment projects, according to four people.
Pension funds are not being mandated to invest, prompting one person familiar with the plans to say that there needed to be some projects backed quickly to avoid it being seen as just a branding exercise. “As with most things in this government we’ve had enough of talking about things, we need delivery now,” they said.
A City of London Corporation spokesperson said: “The Mansion House Accord is a landmark agreement aimed at unlocking pension investment to drive UK growth. The City of London Corporation continues to work closely with industry and government to deliver on the Accord’s commitments.”
The scheme is expected to be announced alongside the UK Investment Summit, which is being held at Edgbaston cricket ground in Birmingham next week. The summit has been billed as a regional version of last year’s Investment Summit, which focused on trying to attract foreign capital into the UK and allowed the chancellor to announce £63bn of private investment.
A number of City sources said pressure and lobbying from government aides had been intense for so-called “announceables” — a jargon term for company investments — for this year’s summit. However, the package of investments due to be announced is expected to be easily dwarfed by investments announced alongside the India trade deal and US state visit.
Blackstone, which last month committed to £100bn in the UK over the next decade, will be attending the event in Birmingham alongside 250 executives. These include representatives from firms such as Coreweave, Deutsche Bank, Lloyds, Metro Bank, Morgan Stanley, HSBC, BMW and Babcock International, according to documents seen by the Financial Times. The summit is being sponsored by IBM.
Chinese online retailer JD.com is due to attend, just over a month after plans were aborted to buy Sainsbury’s Argos business.
Rachel Reeves is also set to announce other initiatives to encourage public-backed financing. One will be a tie-up between eight institutional investors including the National Wealth Fund and British Business Bank to enhance co-ordination.
The bundling of public investment funds has been dubbed “Pufins” and is being designed so that projects and growth businesses can find it easier to work with them, rather than navigating confusing different initiatives.
A new agreement has also been drawn up between the NWF and the most advanced mayoral combined authorities, according to three people familiar with the plan, with a view to simplifying regional access to its financing.
There had been little local uptake of the NWF so far, according to those people, because of red tape, borrowing costs and in some cases a lack of local expertise in building up credible investment proposals.
A Treasury spokesperson said: “The Regional Investment summit will connect government, investors and local leaders to drive growth in every region and put more money in people’s pockets.”