London Borough of Lewisham Pension Fund

London Borough of Lewisham Pension Fund

The London Borough of Lewisham Pension Fund operates as the administering authority for the pension benefits of council employees within the southeast London borough, as part of the national Local Government Pension Scheme. The fund was an early adopter of asset pooling and became a founding shareholder of the London Collective Investment Vehicle (LCIV), the FCA-regulated asset manager created to consolidate the investment assets of London's 32 borough pension funds. Its Pensions Investment Committee, chaired by Cllr Sian Eiles, oversees strategic asset allocation and manager selection. The fund's strategy blends pooled LCIV mandates with direct relationships with external managers. Within private markets, the fund has committed to several buyout funds, though specific vintage-year allocations remain undisclosed. Its real-asset book includes three UK property mandates: the Schroders Property Fund, the BlackRock UK Property Fund, and the LGIM UK Build To Rent Fund, providing a mix of commercial and residential exposure. A healthcare real estate allocation sits with the Octopus Healthcare Fund. The fund was also an early participant in LCIV's Nature Based Solutions Fund, a pooled vehicle deploying capital into global natural-capital assets, and is a member of the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC), signaling an emphasis on climate-risk integration across the portfolio. As a participant in the LGPS pooling framework, the Lewisham fund does not operate with a standalone in-house alternatives team but leverages the LCIV's manager research and co-investment infrastructure. It retains voting shares and governance influence through its founding shareholder status in the LCIV. The fund is also an active member of the Local Authority Pension Fund Forum (LAPFF), engaging collaboratively on stewardship and ESG with other UK public pension funds. The fund's structural identity rests on its dual posture as both a standalone LGPS administering authority and a pooled-asset vehicle shareholder. Unlike fully outsourced LGPS funds that delegate authority to a central pool, Lewisham maintains direct oversight through its Pensions Committee while accessing pooled scale — a hybrid governance model common among London boroughs that joined the LCIV at inception but retained committee-level investment decision-making for direct-manager allocations.