HELPING WITH THE CHALLENGES OF RUNNING A DB SCHEME

In many ways this is our core business – helping with the business as usual challenges of governance, funding and investment. The majority of schemes are closed to accrual and as such have been passed from the HR Director’s in tray to that of the FD.

In all these schemes our first priority is to understand what the sponsor wants to achieve for their scheme and then work with them to develop a strategy for achieving it. In many cases this may involve risk or liability management.

However, there are also a range of other challenges that present themselves to a trustee board including a retiring Chair, the need to rebuild and repair relationships within the board or between the trustee and the sponsor.

Many trustee boards also look for assistance from a professional trustee to mentor lay trustees within the board, agree long term objectives, assist with adviser reviews, challenge covenant reviews or to offer specialist expertise in investment strategy and/or the transition to a fiduciary or delegated investment model.

RISK TRANSFER

Many FDs dream of being able to remove pension liabilities from their balance sheets by entering the ultimate safe haven of a buy-out.

This is a large piece of project management of which we have wide experience as well as undertaking the investment decision of a buy-in. These are some of the largest transactions seen in the UK but we have also entered transactions for some of the smallest schemes.

Indeed, we have expertise in all forms of de-risking and have excellent relationships with the main insurers and fully understand all the preparatory work that is required for such exercises.

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