Life assurance giant Prudential is putting its three main advisers under the spotlight after reaching a turning point in the ongoing review of its legal outsourcing for UK property investment work

Prudential Property Investment Managers (PruPIM) has put on hold the option of increasing its number of legal suppliers by adding a regional firm or firms to the panel. Instead, it will focus on reviewing its existing advisers Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP), CMS Cameron McKenna and Lovells.
Bob Allen, director of PruPIM's property secretariat, said: “We'd been looking at regional suppliers. We've now concluded that we don't want to increase our existing suppliers and we're looking at Lovells, BLP and Camerons and talking to these three suppliers regarding their services looking to the future.
“This is an interim stage. I don't regard the review as completed, but for the present we're not looking to regional suppliers.”
He added: “At the end of the day, we don't want to increase our existing supplier base. If you've got a number of relationships, then it's more difficult to manage them.”
The review of legal outsourcing at PruPIM began last autumn (The Lawyer, 17 September 2001). It is the first review since the panel was set up 10 years ago.
PruPIM is the UK's largest institutional property investor. It now manages 10 funds ranging from less than £20m to more than £8bn and more than 7,000 tenancies. It also invests in limited partnerships, joint ventures and property derivatives.