Investment Consulting

  • £188bn: deficit of 7,400 UK final salary pension schemes monitored by the Pension Protection Fund (April 30, 2009)
  • 6, 429 schemes in deficit - 87 per cent of the total

(source: Pension Protection Fund)

Helping trustees meet scheme and stakeholder objectives

Pension Fund Trustees face an onerous set of responsibilities, made increasingly complex by volatile investment markets and Regulatory changes.  BDO Investment Management’s investment consulting services are designed to support Trustees in a way that enables them to focus on issues of strategy and managing stakeholder interests without abrogating their statutory responsibilities for oversight of investment performance.

The traditional world of pension investing is changing and the high level of uncertainty means that the world of the future is unlikely to look like the recent past.  Specifically, this means that asset allocation and manager selection decisions will need to be made faster in response to changing market conditions.  Trustees cannot simply hope that a buy and hold investment strategy will work, particularly one that is reliant on the traditional equity/bond split.

Investment consulting combines specialist skills from across our business to deliver a broad range of services to clients in a seamless way:

  • Qualified actuarial support to understand member profiles, longevity risk, liability matching and benchmarking.
  • Asset management expertise in developing investment strategy; optimising asset allocation strategies; and selecting third party managers and funds (both active and passive) to deliver the desired investment outcome, whether on an advisory or discretionary basis.
  •  Investment qualified consultants as relationship managers to assist Trustees in monitoring and managing investment performance.

The range of services available to Trustees include:

  • Review and formulation of investment strategy
  • Review of Statements of Investment Principles
  • Fully implemented consulting
  • Manager selection and monitoring
  • Liability driven investing
  • Periodic reporting and performance evaluation
  • Trustee training