Aon Hewitt is providing full delegated services to the University’s £90 million open defined benefit pension plan. This includes the selection, implementation and monitoring of best in class managers across a range of growth and defensive investments, asset allocation decisions, and complete operational oversight.
Ken Dalton, Chair of Trustees of the University of St Andrews Superannuation and Life Assurance Pension Scheme said: “We had worked hard in recent years to manage the risk in our investment strategy. With funding levels improved we were concerned about volatility and the negative impact that could have on our funding position. We therefore reviewed our strategy with our Aon consultant to look at how we could try to reduce volatility and adopt a more defensive and diversified portfolio.
“We worked closely with Aon in the second half of 2016 to discuss the options available to us. We decided to delegate the day to day management of all our scheme’s assets to enable Aon to get their very best ideas and expertise into our portfolio without the need for the trustees to select, review and monitor multiple managers. This had the added benefit of delivering significant annual cost savings through the more efficient portfolio proposed. Most importantly, we had the comfort of knowing that the portfolio will evolve alongside our needs and provide early response as new or better investment opportunities emerge without the loss of governance by the trustees.”
Sion Cole, senior partner and head of European Distribution at Aon Hewitt, said: “We are extremely pleased to have been able to expand our already strong relationship with the University of St Andrews by providing them with a delegated solution. We’ve worked closely with the trustees for many years to evolve their investment strategy which meant that as part of their recent review we were able to offer them a choice of approaches. By managing all their assets under a delegated approach we’ve been able to reduce their volatility and to minimise their manager concentration risk.
“Our delegated offering only invests in our highest conviction buy rated managers. By evolving the portfolio to reflect our latest views on markets, asset classes, strategies and managers, we can effectively future proof our clients’ investments. We do all of this on our clients’ behalf, so they get a market leading solution without the governance burden.”
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