The Pension Scheme Lifecycle and the Role of the Fiduciary Manager

An important consideration for all pension scheme trustees, primarily for defined benefit schemes, is setting an appropriate long-term objective and outlining how they are going to get there, commonly referred to as journey planning.

As part of their role, fiduciary managers will support pension scheme trustees in developing and implementing the scheme’s journey plan. The ‘journey’ of the pension scheme to its agreed end position is what we refer to as the ‘pension scheme lifecycle’. In our paper we discuss what this pension scheme lifecycle typically looks like and what each stage means for a scheme in terms of its portfolio and requirements.

This paper may prompt questions such as:

• Is your investment strategy misaligned to where you are in your journey?
• Has the funding level improved significantly, but your asset allocation remained broadly the same?
• Do you increasingly need more income to pay pensioners?
• Is the prospect of buy-out a potential option for the sponsor in the next 5 years?
• Has your fiduciary fee remained stagnant despite de-risking significantly? 

If you answer yes to any of the above questions, or you’re simply not sure, we believe you should review your approach with your fiduciary manager, no matter where your scheme is in its journey.