• Home
  • About
  • Subscribe
  • LATIF
  • Conferences
  • Dashboard
  • Edit My Profile
  • Log In
  • Logout
  • Register
  • Edit this post

Room 151

  • 151 BRIEF

    What's New?

  • John Turnbull elected president of the SLT

    May 12, 2022

  • Pension pool identifies biodiversity as a priority

    May 11, 2022

  • TfL latest to face credit-rating downgrade by Moody’s

    May 10, 2022

  • Government proposes ‘fairer, more accurate’ business rates system

    May 10, 2022

  • Queen’s Speech confirms planning reforms

    May 10, 2022

  • 18,000 affordable houses lost through ‘permitted development’

    May 9, 2022

  • Treasury
  • Technical
  • Funding
  • Resources
  • LGPS
  • Development
  • 151 News
  • Blogs
    • David Green
    • Agent 151
    • Dan Bates
    • Richard Harbord
    • Stephen Sheen
    • James Bevan
    • Steve Bishop
    • Cllr John Clancy
    • David Crum
    • Graham Liddell
    • Ian O’Donnell
    • Jackie Shute
  • Interviews
  • Briefs

Preview: An interview with Mike Jensen

0
  • by Editor
  • in Interviews
  • — 7 May, 2013

DSC_3398 MikeJensen 3 (5)As part of Room151’s forthcoming Public Sector Treasurers’ Handbook, we spoke to Mike Jensen, chief investment officer of Lancashire County Council, about how to generate a higher yield on your treasury investments while maintaining a robust risk profile, the economic crisis since 2008 and a new era in global markets and risk management. The Handbook will be published towards the end of May with the full, exclusive interview but until then, here’s a sample of what Mike had to say.

On generating over 30% yield on treasury investments in 2011/12:

“Stage two was recognising that if we wanted to improve the quality of our counterparty list we needed to move away from the traditional bank deposit model and towards lending to institutions that were sovereign, quasi-sovereign or had a good deal of sovereign support.”

“The series of positions we took was purely based on risk reduction for the authority, namely credit risk reduction and yield curve risk reduction.”

On investing in the treasury function:

“There are 45 Bloomberg licences in local government and a handful of local government pension funds count for almost all of them. So you’ve got to invest in hardware and the people who can give you quality information but actually you’ve just got to start doing some very simple things too.”

“There’s nothing to stop authorities from developing relationships with the banks behind the brokers, the bond desks and the strategists from banks/fund managers  who are producing research pieces of a very high quality that are extremely relevant to the  day-to-day money management activities of authorities.”

On PWLB loans:

“I spoke to HMT about…18mths ago and put forward the idea that we should be opening up a secondary PWLB loan market. If we’re reaching the statutory limit on PWLB borrowing – there’s a strong case for pushing the secondary market idea harder still.”

On the economy:

“There’s a good chance we’ll get another base rate cut to 25bps or 0%. What does that do to three month LIBOR rates? What will it do to the rate the DMO will pay on the DMADF? That’ll have to go somewhere close to zero.”

“I really don’t think the man in the street realises, or perhaps even some market participants for that matter, just how precarious the banking system was (in 2010/11).  Major French, Spanish, Italian and regional/mortgage German banks were perilously close to failure and if one or more had collapsed we could have been looking at a complete systemic failure that could not have been coped with.”

On Iceland:

“The lessons were flagged up by the Treasury Select Committee but who should have been taking those lessons forward? The individual authorities to a certain extent but clearly they were handicapped insofar as they didn’t necessarily have the market experience and connections.”

——————————————————————————————————————————————————–

Local authority treasury departments will receive a free copy of the Handbook. Private sector firms who would like to pre-order their HALF-PRICE copy may do so HERE at the *reduced rate.

*Offer lasts until May 31, 2013, subject to availability. 

Share

You may also like...

  • Pension power: beyond net zero 4th Feb, 2022
  • How a digital revolution is upon us 7th Feb, 2022
  • ‘Funding cuts have changed the scale, shape and scope of local government’ 31st Jan, 2022
  • Jackie Weaver calls for more ‘hyper-localism’ to revitalise local government 9th Feb, 2022

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

  • Register to become a Room151 user

  • Latest tweets

    Room151 1 day ago

    ‘Urgent consultation’ issued in response to continuing audit delays: CIPFA and the Local Authority Scotland Accounts Advisory Committee (LASAAC) have announced another “urgent consultation” to consider proposals to address the latest issue that has led… dlvr.it/SQJ0kV pic.twitter.com/s6vw0bnGXO

    Room151 2 days ago

    Bags of capacity – now to housing delivery: HRAs have been freed up and councils are starting to invest, but some remain cautious, writes Steve Partridge. He suggests that a minimum of £10bn of additional borrowing could be[...] dlvr.it/SQDvxk pic.twitter.com/yZmoWzHv6U

    Room151 2 days ago

    Bags of capacity – now to housing delivery room151.co.uk/treasury/bags-…

    Room151 3 days ago

    To Michael Gove: a modest proposal: Conrad Hall has written an open letter to the levelling up secretary suggesting an unusual (and tongue-in-cheek) proposal to help councils predict next year’s government grant. Dear Secretary of State,[...] dlvr.it/SQ9GpX pic.twitter.com/mSX1xgeL8a

    Room151 3 days ago

    Queen’s Speech: an ambitious plan hampered by omissions: Richard Harbord examines the impact of the government’s legislative proposals on councils, and concludes that local authorities expect and need more from central government. However you view the… dlvr.it/SQ8hmP pic.twitter.com/BsnziyNPIO

    Room151 4 days ago

    Insights and inspiration from LGPS leaders past and present: Four current and former LGPS leaders have recently given powerful and insightful interviews as part of the Fiftyfaces podcast, which showcases inspiring investors and their stories. Hosted by… dlvr.it/SQ53lC pic.twitter.com/IRYMFPxdA2

    Room151 5 days ago

    Rate rise represents ‘fastest increase in borrowing costs in 25 years’: Partner Content: CCLA Investment Management’s Robert Evans analyses the rationale for the Bank of England’s latest rise in the Official Bank Rate and assesses the likely outcome of… dlvr.it/SQ33k3 pic.twitter.com/A81yiS1UgN

    Room151 5 days ago

    The Liability Benchmark, very much unloved at the recent Room151 treasury briefing, receives a much more positive assessment from Jackie Shute. There’s ‘no better tool for treasury portfolio management’, she says. #localgov #finance room151.co.uk/treasury/in-pr…

    Room151 5 days ago

    In praise of the Liability Benchmark: Jackie Shute responds to recent criticisms of the framework used to plan the future borrowing requirements of a local authority. I’m not suggesting that this debate will have the same[...] dlvr.it/SQ2cGf pic.twitter.com/4rqXTpHC9A

  • Categories

    • 151 News
    • Agent 151
    • Audit
    • Blogs
    • Business rates
    • Chris Buss
    • Cllr John Clancy
    • Council tax
    • Dan Bates
    • David Crum
    • David Green
    • Development
    • Education
    • Forum
    • Funding
    • Governance
    • Graham Liddell
    • Housing
    • Ian O'Donnell
    • Infrastructure
    • Interviews
    • Jackie Shute
    • James Bevan
    • Jobs
    • Levelling up
    • LGPS
    • Mark Finnegan
    • Net Zero
    • Private markets
    • Recent Posts
    • Regulation
    • Resources
    • Responsible investing
    • Richard Harbord
    • Risk management
    • Social care
    • Stephen Fitzgerald
    • Stephen Sheen
    • Steve Bishop
    • Technical
    • Transport
    • Treasury
    • Uncategorized
    • William Bourne
  • Archives

    • 2022
    • 2021
    • 2020
    • 2019
    • 2018
    • 2017
    • 2016
    • 2015
    • 2014
    • 2013
    • 2012
    • 2011
  • Previous story Council budgets: power to the people?
  • Next story Councils divided on arts cuts

© Copyright 2022 Room 151. Typegrid Theme by WPBandit.

0 shares