The retirement fund of Barclays, the UK bank, has appointed Russell Investments to manage a £2bn (€3.0bn) global equity portfolio, the largest pension scheme mandate Russell has ever won in the country.

Russell will use its multi-manager techniques to look after the money, slotting together portfolios supervised by 15 different managers operating on a global and a regional basis. A spokeswoman for Russell confirmed that some of the managers will run money using the long/short hedge fund style.