Another community trust investment consulting gig is out to tender with the approximately $315 million Otago fund considering applications.
Otago currently retains Russell Investments as incumbent under an implemented consulting agreement inked in 2017.
It is understood that the Dunedin-headquartered community trust is now short-listing candidates.
Community trusts regularly review investment advisory arrangements in a process that has seen Australian consultancy firm, JANA, win two key clients in the sector over the last couple of years.
Most recently, JANA secured the consulting role at the $250 million Trust South (formerly, the Southland Community Trust), ousting Aon and fending off strong competition from fellow Australian business, Frontier.
In 2020, JANA also won the plum investment advisory contract at the now $1.8 billion Foundation North – the largest of the community trusts.
Meanwhile, the Otago fund is also seeking a new chief executive to replace, Barbara Bridger, who crosses the border to assume a similar role at the Cromwell-based Central Lakes Trust (CLT) in April.
The almost $470 million CLT, which emerged out of a regional electricity asset devolution in 2000, describes itself as “the largest philanthropic trust per capita in the Southern Hemisphere”.
Of the total $467 million in CLT assets about $305 million is invested in a diversified portfolio (understood to be advised by Melville Jessup Weaver). CLT also fully owns electricity firm, Pioneer Energy, which represents roughly a third of total trust assets.
After more than eight years heading the Otago Community Trust, Bridger steps in for ex-CLT chief, Susan Finlay, who resigned “with immediate effect” last October, according to a release.
CLT chair, Linda Robertson, said in a statement near the end of January this year that Bridger “brings a wealth of experience in the philanthropic, management and investment space and is already well known to many within the Central Lakes region through her current role”.