Dorset County Pension Fund has awarded a 拢40m (鈧50m) infrastructure investment mandate to private equity and infrastructure specialist manager Hermes Infrastructure.

The money will be invested in Hermes Infrastructure鈥檚 pooled fund, which is due to close in April 2015, a spokeswoman confirmed.  

The fund has already raised 拢850m.

Hermes鈥檚 spokeswoman said the manager was offering all Local Government Pension Schemes (LGPS) the opportunity to aggregate their commitments to the pooled fund, to get the benefit of a discount of up to 50% on the total fee, depending on the final size of the aggregated commitments.  

The discount is triggered at the 拢50m commitment level, which has already been reached, meaning any additional LGPS investor will immediately benefit. 

So far, the Dorset pension fund and two other LGPSs have committed to invest in the fund, the spokeswoman said.

鈥淲e鈥檙e hopeful we鈥檒l get some more LGPSs before the fund closes in April 2015,鈥 she said.

Yesterday, 

The Dorset fund, the Avon Pension Fund and the City and County of Swansea Pension Fund had put out a joint tender notice earlier in the year, looking for infrastructure managers.