The £1.2bn (€1.8bn) Cumbria County Council pension has become the latest UK retirement fund to outsource a substantial brief covering private equity, hedge funds and commodities and other alternatives to a single manager, potentially heralding a shift in the way schemes manage complex investments.

Cumbria has hired US fund manager BlackRock to manage a 10% or £120m allocation to a "fund of alternatives" mandate and joins a small group of UK schemes to publicly reveal a commitment to the new pooled funds.