The pension fund of Harrow local authority in the UK has reduced part of its mandate with Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (MLIM) citing staff departures and poor performance at the UK fund manager.

MLIM runs a £145m (€228m) balanced mandate for the £290m local authority scheme and has been dropped from handling the £100m global equity portion. MLIM, the asset management operation of Merrill Lynch that has been hit by a mass exit of top senior managers and poor investment returns, retains its property and bond mandates at the North London fund.