The chief investment officer of the £12 billion ($17 billion) National Grid U.K. Pension Scheme has stepped down.
After five years at the helm, Rob Schreur has left National Grid, a fund employee confirmed on Monday.
“The good news, from my perspective, is that I don’t know yet what will be next, at least not from a professional perspective,” Schreur said in a message via LinkedIn on Monday. “And, to be frank, I’m not in a hurry.”
A spokesperson for the National Grid declined to comment further on Tuesday.
On June 3, the Duchenne Data Foundation announced that Schreur had joined its board of directors as a part of its expansion. According to the announcement, the cause is personal to Schreur, whose daughter has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, a genetic disorder with progressive muscle degeneration and weakness.
Schreur joined the U.K. fund in 2015 after it offloaded its £13 billion in-house investment team, Aerion Fund Management, to Legal and General, according to an announcement from the time. As a part of that deal, National Grid created a “small executive office” for a pension and investment team to help work with the fund’s trustees.
Since then, the National Grid pension has undergone a series of buy-in transactions, in which the pension buys contracts with insurers, who then become obligated to pay members’ benefits in the future. According to a PwC explainer, buy-ins are investment contracts, and trustees are still on the hook to pay members’ benefits.
National Grid signed two buy-in contracts in 2019 — one with Legal and General for £1.6 billion, and another with Rothesay for £2.8 billion. A December 2020 contract worth £800 million with Rothesay followed, an announcement from the time shows.
“Reducing risk in our pension arrangements is a priority for National Grid and this transaction represents another important step in that journey,” said Eddie Hodgart, group head of pensions at the company, in the announcement.
Schreur joined National Grid from Philips Pensioenfonds, the corporate pension plan for Dutch healthcare technology conglomerate Koninklijke Philips, his LinkedIn profile shows. He spent 16 years at the pension fund, first as head of institutional clients, then as head of investments, and eventually as its chief investment officer.
Schreur began his career at Dutch pension giant, ABP.
