Barnet Pension Fund Investments
Received: 16 March 2023
Dear Barnet Borough Council,
I am researching the fossil fuel investments made by UK Local Government Pension Schemes (LGPS) for an upcoming report by UK Divest. On publication, the report is likely to receive substantial interest from press and the elected representatives sitting on pension fund committees across the UK. Therefore can you please ensure the investment data you provide is as accurate as possible as our analysis will be fundamentally informed by it.
To complete this research, I require data on each investment that was held by the London Borough of Barnet Pension Fund on 31 March 2022, or the nearest possible date:
1. Investment names. Please provide the names of all investments held by the pension fund. For direct investments, please provide the names of individual investments such as specific stocks, bonds, and real estate units. For indirect investments (i.e. those held via a third party), please provide the names of investment vehicles, such as specific mutual funds, exchange traded funds (ETFs) and real estate investment trusts (REITs) and anything else. Note we do not need to know what each indirect investment vehicle invests in as we will determine this in the data analysis.
2. Investment identifiers. For listed investments (i.e. those traded on public exchanges), such as bonds and equities, please provide the International Securities Identifier Number (ISIN). For any investments that do not have an ISIN number, such as some alternative assets, please provide the Legal Entity Identifier (LEI). If an investment does not have an identifier, please provide an explanation.
3. Asset types. The asset type for each investment as reported by the pension fund, such as: real estate, cash, private equity, listed equity, sovereign bonds, corporate bonds etc.
4. Investment managers. The name of the entity which is responsible for the day-to-day management of each investment. For example, this could be the name of the entity which manages a specific investment fund such as Baillie Gifford, Legal & General, UBS etc. Note we do not need to know who is responsible for the overall governance of the LGPS or any pools it might belong to.
5. Investment values. The market value of each investment in pounds sterling (£) on 31 March 2022 or the nearest possible date. And please also give the total value of the pension fund.
We have created a read-only Google Sheet as a template for how we would like the data presented when you answer this request. You can view and download it here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Bs6GQ3k6_w26t2CvNOsUbYiUkw8rrB__/
If possible, please use this Google Sheet when answering for each sub-fund. Please note there are two tabs - 'summary' and 'data'. Please fill in both tabs for each sub-fund. Using the template would help us accurately analyse the data provided.
If you respond promptly and to a satisfactory standard, we will willingly share our analysis with you prior to publication of our report, so you have the chance to comment and benchmark your pension fund against other UK LGPS.
I would like to receive this information in unlocked excel sheets without protected cells (.xls). If you have to password protect the excel sheets, please also provide the password to them. When considering the request for this data in excel format, please refer to Innes v Information Commissioner [2014] EWCA Civ 1086