The trustee of the £120m Shop Direct Group Pension Plan has chosen Towers Watson as its fiduciary manager.
Towers Watson was selected to manage investment portfolio as part of its delegated investment service following a competitive tender process.
Shop Direct Group Pension Plan chief investment officer John Ashworth, said: “We are pleased to announce the appointment of Towers Watson as the fiduciary manager of our plan. As part of the appointment process, we took into account the expertise, time and level of resource needed to manage our plan and decided that their delegated model offered the most flexible and effective way to achieve our long-term goals. Accordingly, we now have governance structures in place which we are confident will deliver investment performance goals and risk management in the best interests of all our members.”
Towers Watson EMEA head of Investment Ed Francis, added: “We are delighted that the Shop Direct trustee has appointed us in this delegated role, which we believe is a highly effective way for institutional investors to address governance challenges and make the most of investment opportunities. We continue to see a high level of interest in our delegated services as investors seek robust and cost-effective solutions in these complex and volatile times.”
This comes as a survey from Aon Hewitt revealed almost half of schemes now have some form of fiduciary management mandate in place.
The survey of 230 schemes with an estimated £181bn of assets and representing around 10% of the UK defined benefit market, found 46% had a fiduciary management solution in place compared to just 18% in 2011.
For larger schemes – those with more than £1bn in assets under management – more than half (51%) said they had either full or partial fiduciary mandate in place, compared with 22% in 2014.
Elsewhere, the survey found 58% of schemes would prefer to use a fiduciary provider linked to their existing actuary or investment consultant.
Aon Hewitt partner and head of European distribution Sion Cole said: “It has been a common misconception that fiduciary management is used mainly by small schemes. This year’s survey shows that while this remains the case for full fiduciary management, we are now seeing strong growth in take-up from mid-sized and larger schemes on bespoke mandates.
“Last year 22% of larger schemes used fiduciary management services and this year’s results show a significant uptake, proving that schemes are recognising the benefits of delegating the day-to-day decisions on the portfolio and the fact that they see value in the wider range of bespoke solutions available.”
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