The £40bn ACCESS LGPS pool has selected Aviva Investors to manage a £250 million long-lease property mandate.
This decision will see Aviva Investors handling the mandate on behalf of the Lime Property Fund, which focuses on cross-sector property investments in the UK. These investments aim to provide inflation-linked or fixed rental uplifts with leases extending over 15 years.
Councillor Mark Kemp-Gee, chairman of the ACCESS Joint Committee stated, “The demand for alternative income from our partners is likely to increase considering the current environment, so this is an important addition to the ACCESS Pool’s suite of alternative funds.”
Jill Barber, chief distribution officer at Aviva Investors highlighted the Lime Property Fund’s strong track record in delivering low-volatility, inflation-linked returns.
ACCESS comprises 11 LGPS Administering Authorities, including councils from Cambridgeshire, East Sussex, Essex, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, Isle of Wight, Kent, Norfolk, West Northamptonshire, Suffolk, and West Sussex.
The pool’s asset consolidation efforts have initially focused on listed markets but it is now gradually expanding into less liquid assets such as property. Last month, two of the fund’s administering authorities, Essex County Council and Hampshire County Council, have made the first commitment to the Pool’s new property solution, committing a combined £1.3bn to two property mandates ran by CBRE Investment Management.
ACCESS’ latest commitment to the Lime Property Fund offers its administering authorities access to a Jersey-registered open-ended real estate fund managed by Aviva’s Renos Booth & Kris Mcphail. The portfolio includes 83 holdings, ranging from retail property to UK office spaces and UK industrial properties.
According to the fund’s factsheet, it has performed -15% which is slightly above the performance of other open-ended real estate funds, who returned -17, reflecting a more challenging outlook for real estate, partly due to higher central bank base rates.
Aviva Investors, the asset management arm of Aviva plc, operates in 14 countries and manages £227 billion in assets as of the end of 2023.
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