Greater Manchester Pension Fund Commits £30 Million to Newcore, Half of It to a Ring-Fenced North West Co-Investment Vehicle

Greater Manchester Pension Fund (GMPF) has committed £30 million to the core-plus social infrastructure strategy of UK manager Newcore Capital, reported on 15 October 2026. The money is split evenly. £15 million goes to the Newcore Social Infrastructure Income Fund (NSIIF), which gives GMPF UK-wide exposure, and £15 million goes to the NSIIF North West Co-investment Partnership (NNCP), a regional sidecar with an allocation ring-fenced for the North West of England and the wider Northern LGPS region. By capital that is 50% in the national fund and 50% in the regional vehicle, and by count it is one of two vehicles tied to GMPF's home region.

What was committed

The two vehicles sit inside one strategy. NSIIF is the main fund and the sidecar invests alongside it, so GMPF holds a national position and a regional one through a single manager relationship. Newcore's chief executive, Hugo Llewelyn, said other Local Government Pension Scheme investors already hold NSIIF and that the firm wants to attract LGPS and other investors who want to deploy capital nationally and in their own regions. He also argued that the UK's physical social infrastructure has suffered years of underinvestment and that private capital has a role in modernising existing assets. NSIIF is described as a core-plus income fund investing in real estate that supports essential services across the UK. The announcement did not give GMPF's share of either vehicle or the size of NNCP, so we have not calculated one. For the largest scheme in the LGPS the cheque is modest, which makes the structure more interesting than the amount. Set against the £100 million GMPF committed in January 2025, the new £30 million is 30% of that earlier cheque.

A second bespoke North West vehicle in 21 months

This is not the first time GMPF has asked for a regional wrapper. In January 2025 it committed £100 million to a Legal & General affordable housing fund, built as a regional extension of L&G's existing affordable housing fund and tailored to the Northern LGPS, the pool formed by GMPF, Merseyside and West Yorkshire. Across the two announcements GMPF has put £130 million into three vehicles, and £115 million of it, 88% of the capital, went to the two vehicles built for the North West. The remaining £15 million, 12%, went to the UK-wide Newcore fund. By count, two of the three vehicles are regional, or 67%. This is our reading, not a statement from GMPF: when a manager can offer a regional label, GMPF appears to prefer to commit through it.

The LP behind the commitment

GMPF is the largest fund in the Local Government Pension Scheme and administers pensions for more than 414,000 members. It is a UK pension fund among the UK investors that GPs raising in the region will meet, and it belongs to the Northern LGPS pool alongside Merseyside and West Yorkshire. Pools differ in how they work. We covered how LGPS Central's partner funds lifted private markets commitments by £1.9 billion to about £8.1 billion in a year, and how a manager can map warm paths into a UK pension pool. The Newcore sidecar shows a scheme in a pool using a regional vehicle to keep a local angle inside a manager relationship it also holds nationally.

How the sidecar compares with other co-investment asks

A co-investment sleeve beside a main fund is one way a pension shapes an exposure to its own needs. Denmark's P+, for example, gave Schroders Capital a EUR 200 million private equity co-investment mandate. The GMPF case differs in what defines the sleeve. In the Danish mandate the sleeve is a separate pool of deals, and in the Newcore case it is a slice of the same strategy fenced by geography. For a manager that is a lighter ask, because the sidecar does not need a different investment thesis, only a rule about where the capital may go.

What GPs should do now

This is our advice. If you run UK real assets, infrastructure or property strategies and you already have a flagship fund, price a regional or thematic sidecar before you pitch an LGPS scheme. GMPF put £15 million into each Newcore vehicle, which is a useful marker for the size of a first cheque, though it is not a rule. Name the region in precise terms: the ring-fence here covers the North West and the wider Northern LGPS region, which maps onto the pool's footprint. Offer the national fund and the local sleeve under consistent terms, and check which other LGPS schemes already sit in your fund, because Newcore pointed to that overlap in public. Ask staff how their pool decides on regional vehicles before you write the pitch, and ask whether a regional sleeve would be assessed separately from the main fund. A pitch that arrives with the sidecar already priced, sized and described in one page is easier for a committee to say yes to than one that leaves the structure to be worked out later.

What to watch next

Watch whether Merseyside or West Yorkshire follow into the sidecar, whether Newcore discloses the size of NNCP, and whether other managers copy the format. FundLinx members can see which UK pension schemes are active in real assets this quarter.

FundLinx Intelligence | FundLinx.ai