Investment giant State Street said on Monday that Edinburgh-based local government pension scheme provider Lothian Pension Fund has adopted the Charles River Investment Management Solution “to help strengthen its investment processes and provide capacity for expansion of its third-party services.”

Charles River is a State Street company.

“The investment team is using the multi-asset solution, with portfolio management as well as trade order and execution capabilities, to manage around £8.5bn of pension fund assets on behalf of over 85,000 scheme members,” said State Street.

Lothian Pension Fund CEO Doug Heron said: “With an ambition to increase our internal investment capability and to eliminate the gap between us and the quality managers in the market, we’re strengthening a number of areas of our team and partnering with Charles River gives us access to core technology which supports our operations and compliance arrangements.

“Charles River’s solutions provide us with the data and trading capabilities which allow us to stay up-to-date with state-of-the-art trading capabilities and remain compliant with ever-changing regulations.”

Gavin Lavelle, Managing Director EMEA, Charles River, said: “As the pension market evolves, asset owners, such as Lothian, are seeking ways to optimise their investment strategies and better manage risk.

“Our front-to-back solution provides investment managers and asset owners greater operational efficiencies, encourage new opportunities for collaboration between investment professionals and deliver a single, and enterprise-wide view of portfolios and exposures.”