The Grant Thornton Pensions Fund has hired a fiduciary manager to handle its £250m in assets following initial uncertainty over the FM model “based on previous experience”. Last month, the AA Pension Scheme also announced it had hired a fiduciary for part of its assets.  

The pension fund for the professional services company picked Cardano as its fiduciary manager, which will provide investment advice, investment management, and risk management. The manager said there will be a particular focus on matching liabilities through a segregated liability-driven investment mandate, while delivering steady returns through a growth portfolio.    

“We undertook the market tender as, based on previous experience, we were not sure if fiduciary management was right for us. However, after meeting the Cardano team, it was clear that fiduciary management was what we needed and they were the right team for us,” said Carl Williams, who chairs the trustee board, without going into detail about the experience referred to.  

Williams added that Cardano was “effective in engaging with our trustee board, and it’s already clear that we’ll be getting first-class advice and service, alongside their investment capabilities. Their client references were very impressive, and the smooth and cost-effective onboarding has been an early validation of our decision to appoint them.”    

Steve Berkovi, client director at Cardano, said: “We can already see this will be a great fit and are very pleased with the relationship built so far. With the assets successfully transitioned, we look forward to working with the trustee, the principal employer and other advisers to help secure members’ benefits.”   

Last month, Van Lanschot Kempen Investment Management UK said it had won an £800m fiduciary mandate from the £1.4bn AA Pension Scheme.   

  

Trustee chair for the AA Pension Scheme Steve Delo, a professional trustee at Pan Trustees, said the scheme had conducted “an extensive selection exercise over an extended period”. 

 

“We were impressed with the partnership model Van Lanschot Kempen operates and the collaborative nature of their lead team members. We had confidence that they can work productively with our investment committee to achieve the returns required from our growth portfolio and dovetail effectively with the scheme’s LDI programme. They are also performing an important governance and management role with our portfolio of illiquid assets,” said Delo. 

  

Jay Stewart, who chairs the scheme’s investment committee, said: “The Van Lanschot Kempen team bring considerable intellectual power to their portfolio decision-making and are strong communicators of their investment ideas. We expect them to play a key role in the investment governance model we operate and enable trustee energies to be focused on top level, strategic matters.” 

  

Vicky Casebourne, head of institutional relations UK at Van Lanschot Kempen, said the selection exercise was “rigorous” and focussed on finding an investment partner who could provide a solution tailored to the trustee board’s needs.  

 

"We have greatly enjoyed working with all the trustees and advisers to the scheme over the last few years and are looking forward to the future of this successful partnership.”