LGPS hires Ian Brown as head of private markets

Katharine Hidalgo
25 September 2020

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LGPS Central, an asset manager and operator of alternative investment funds, has hired Ian Brown as head of private markets.

Brown will lead the LP's private equity team, and its infrastructure and property team.

He joins from Lloyds Bank, where he built an underwriting-led leveraged finance business by increasing support for larger private equity buyouts in western Europe. He managed offices in London, Stockholm, Paris, Frankfurt, Madrid and Amsterdam.

Brown was subsequently promoted to head of the bank's loan financing division where he led a team comprised of around 100 professionals undertaking origination and advisory mandates in infrastructure finance, leveraged finance, high-yield bonds, syndicated corporate lending, underwriting and debt capital advisory.

He was previously head of the leveraged finance execution team at UBS.

Unquote reported in October last year that LGPS Central was searching for a head of private markets to take direct responsibility of the private equity assets, following the departure of Omar Ghafur.

Ghafur served as investment director of private equity at LGPS Central, a £45bn partnership of eight local government pension schemes (LGPS), until the end of September 2019. He left to join Altana Wealth as an investment director in charge of managing the newly launched Public Sector Social Impact Fund, which is a joint venture between Warrington Borough Council and Altana.

LGPS Central also appointed Gordon Ross as its chief investment officer in May this year. Based in Wolverhampton, Ross joined the company as an investment director for fixed income in February 2018 and became deputy CIO in March 2019. He will start in his new role as permanent CIO on 1 July 2020.

LGPS Central launched its first private equity fund in early 2019 as part of its private equity platform, which is set to consist of annual vintages investing in a blend of fund and direct investments. The primary funds investment sleeve was fully invested eight months after the launch.

LGPS Central was founded to manage the pooled investment assets of the Cheshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Worcestershire, West Midlands, and West Midlands Integrated Transport Authority (ITA) LGPSs.