JPMorgan has been appointed by the West Midlands Metropolitan Authorities Pension Fund to provide currency hedging for the 7.9 billion fund’s non-UK assets.
The Foreign Exchange and Rates (FX & Rates) division of JPMorgan’s investment bank will provide the currency hedging through its Passive Currency Overlay Programme for about 1.3 billion of non-UK assets.
JPMorgan has offered Passive Currency Overlay services to both custody and non-custody UK pension funds and charities since 2005.
“We are increasingly seeing demands from our custody clients and firms that don’t currently use our custody services for currency hedging solutions, utilising the liquidity, transparency, risk management, and overall execution capabilities of our investment bank’s FX business,” says Paul Wilson, global head of Sales and Client Management for Financing & Market Products, JPMorgan Worldwide Securities Services.
“We are delighted our investment bank will provide a currency hedging programme to West Midlands Pension Fund, which demonstrates our ability to deliver a broad range of products to UK pensions and charities,” says Benjie Fraser, head of UK pensions and charities in JPMorgan’s Securities Company.
“When we decided to start a currency hedging programme for the fund we found that JPMorgan offered the most comprehensive program, and we look forward to working with them,” adds Judy Saunders, chief investment officer, West Midlands Pension Fund.