UK Pensions Awards 2022
Welcome to the
Find out the winners
How we choose the winners
What are these awards all about?
The UK Pensions Awards – which celebrated their 25th anniversary in 2022 - remain the industry's most prestigious accolades. They shine the light on excellence and recognise the advisers, providers and investment managers that offer the highest level of innovation, performance and service to occupational pension schemes and their members, and have done the most to improve this over the past year.
Get in touch
The process for the 2022 awards began at the end of last year when advisers and providers nominated themselves, or were nominated by schemes, for the accolades. Each firm then put forward their submission, which was used by our panel of judges to draw up the shortlists and decide on the winners. This year’s awards were rigorously judged by a panel of 46 senior scheme managers, trustees and advisers, comprising:
• Aled Davies, head of customer success at Knowa and pensions adviser at Zephyrus Partners • Amanda Burdge, partner and head of investment at Quantum Advisory • Andrew Evans, independent trustee • Andrew Pearson, managing director at KBPR • Andrew Vaughan, senior partner at Barnett Waddingham • Ash Field, head of pensions at The University of Manchester • Ava Lau, director of global benefits, pensions and mobility at the London Stock Exchange Group • Bobby Riddaway, UK pensions consulting market director at Capita • Brian Healy, chair of trustees at the National Communications Union Staff Superannuation Scheme (NCUSSS) • Caroline Eastwood, senior manager for pensions at the Nationwide Building Society • Chris Clifton, chair of trustees at Husqvarna UK Pensions Trustee • Chris Parrott, independent trustee at BESTrustees and non-executive director and advisory council member at the Pensions Management Institute • Darren Philp, founder Shula PR and Policy • Eve Keith, pension manager at Tesco • Fraser Smart, director at SmartCats Consulting • Graham Jung, trustee director at Ross Trustees • Hugh Nolan, senior trustee representative at Dalriada Trustees, director at Spence and Partners and past-president of the Society of Pension Professionals • Ian McQuade, CEO at Muse Advisory • James Riley, immediate past-president of the Society of Pension Professionals, • Jas Bhogal, pensions manager at Rexel UK • Jenna Fisher, head of pension services at the Northern Ireland Local Government Officers’ Superannuation Committee (NILGOSC) • Joanne Fairbairn, client director at PTL • Kevin LeGrand, independent pensions consultant and past-president of the Pensions Management Institute and Society of Pension Professionals • Kim Brown, mastertrust and IGC pension scheme director at Legal & General • Kim Gubler, chairwoman of PASA, trustee of the Crystal Master Trust and director of KGC Associates, • Kiran Lamb, pensions and benefits manager • Lesley Alexander, immediate past-president of the Pensions Management Institute, • Lesley Carline, director of KGC Associates and past-president of the Pensions Management Institute, • Maria Nazarova-Doyle, head of pension Investments at Scottish Widows • Mark Engelbretson, head of pensions at Network Rail • Mark Smith, pensions manager at Coventry University • Mike O'Connor, head of pensions at Next • Natalie Leaver, head of UK pension & endowment funds at J.P. Morgan and trustee of the JPMorgan DC Pension Plan • Nathalie Sims, partner and head of strategic relationships at LCP • Nicola Morgan, head of pensions at Marks & Spencer • Oliver Payne, European pensions manager at Ford Motor Company • Paul Sturgess, chief officer for benefits at Railpen • Philip Exact, head of pensions & benefits at Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance • Raj Mody, partner at PwC • Robert Branagh, chief executive at the London Pensions Fund Authority • Roger Mattingly, trustee director at Ross Trustees • Rosie Lacey, vice-president of the Pensions Management Institute • Sharon Bellingham, master trust lead at Scottish Widows • Sheridan Bowers, executive director and head of UK & Ireland at Vontobel Asset Management • Susan Phillips, director at Go Pensions • Tim Banks, sales director for UK institutional core clients at Axa Investment Managers • Vicky Carr, partner at Sackers
Our sponsors
For support we thank:
the 2022 awards
25 Years of Excellence in Consultancy
25 Years of Excellence in Defined Contribution
25 Years of Excellence in Investment Management
Fiduciary Manager of the Year
DC Consultancy of the Year
Risk Reduction Adviser of the Year
Actuarial/Pensions Consultancy of the Year
DB Multi-Asset Manager of the Year
Explore our 2020 Awards
Click on a category to reveal the winner
DC Pension Provider of the Year of the Year
Find the winner
Active Fund Awards
DB Investment Innovation of the Year
Cashflow-driven Investment (CDI) Manager of the Year
Investment Consultancy of the Year
Impact Manager of the Year
Fixed Income Manager of the Year
DB Master Trust / Consolidator of the Year
group awards
Group awards
passive fund awards
Active fund awards
find out more
DC Innovation of the Year
DC Multi-Asset Fund Manager of the Year
DC Investment Manager of the Year
Alternative and Private Markets Investment Manager of the Year
Diversity & Inclusion Award
the 2022 awards Categories
HOME
|
DC Master Trust of the Year of the Year
Risk Reduction Provider of the Year
Third-Party Administrator of the Year
Sponsor Covenant / IRM Adviser of the Year
Pensions Communication Initiative of the Year
Equity Manager of the Year
Educational and Thought Leadership Initiative of the Year
Emerging Markets Manager of the Year
Fiduciary Evaluator of the Year
Factor Investing Manager of the Year
ESG Manager of the Year
Investment Manager of the Year
Institutional Investment Platform Provider of the Year
Independent Trustee of the Year
Technology Innovation of the Year
Retirement Innovation of the Year
Real Estate Manager of the Year
Pensions Litigation Firm of the Year
Pensions Lawyers of the Year
LDI Manager of the Year
DC Pension Provider of the Year
DC Master Trust of the Year
Return to top of page
Who made the shortlist?
Back to categories
Congratulations! Lane Clark & Peacock
Aon Barnett Waddingham Cardano Hymans Robertson Lane Clark & Peacock Punter Southall PwC Quietroom Squire Patton Boggs (UK)
Standard Life’s Gail Izat (left) and Sally Phillips (right) present the accolade to LCP’s Aaron Punwani (centre left) and Helen Shackelford (centre right)
Caring for its clients, its colleagues and the community has been LCP’s philosophy for the past 25 years, but especially so over the last two challenging years, which saw the firm continue to grow and deepen its client relationships, expand its range of services, and maintain an environment where its people can thrive. LCP says it has also identified opportunities to build on its strengths in data and analytics in new areas over the past 25 years. Its investment in its health analytics team, for instance, is enriching its insight on health and mortality trends and its team is actively working to make our health system sustainable in the long term. Meanwhile, LCP’s energy team is helping advise how the UK can reach net zero and helping its pension clients understand where to invest in renewables. Over the last few years LCP has also invested in developing cutting edge tools. It now has 16 independent pension technologies, including LCP Visualise and LCP Life Analytics, and launched four brand new tools to market in 2021 – GMP Equaliser, LCP Advance, ESG and Climate Dashboards and LCP Climate Risks and Opportunities tool. LCP says its technology helps its clients solve their problems but also helps them to chart their course to their goals and ultimately ensure their members’ financial security. It says this has become even more important in light of the new regulatory requirements for schemes to journey plan. In conclusion, LCP says that while success is often measured by financial achievement, and it is proud of the record-breaking growth it has delivered over the last few years, the firm is, at the end of the day, all about people – noting it has long and trusted relationships with clients and a fantastic group of people working for the firm, including more than 25 current partners who have over 25 years of service at LCP. This, it says, is the secret to its 25 years of success and the next 25 to come.
An extract from LCP’s original submission…
Interview: Aaron Punwani
What does it mean to win this award? The UK Pensions Awards are one of the industry's most prestigious accolades and I am delighted that LCP stood out this year. We are very proud of our people, and this win is testament to their hard work and dedication. They have consistently striven over many years and during some tough times to deliver excellent performance, innovative approaches to problems, and dedicated service to our clients. What have been your main achievements as an organisation over the past 18 months? In a word, diversity. In all areas. We have diversified our talent pool, our client base, our capabilities and our range of services in a way that stands out in the industry. This has helped us emerge from the pandemic stronger and more innovative than ever and continue to invest in driving the long-term growth and evolution of our business. Some key highlights: • We continue to champion diversity, equity and inclusion, not just internally, but in our work with clients, which has been recognised with several industry awards. • We acquired energy consultancy Delta-EE earlier this year and now have a combined offering called LCP Delta. This in-depth knowledge and expertise of all aspects of the energy sector will benefit our pension clients and help them to navigate the energy transition as part of their commitment to tackling climate change. • Our health analytics practice, synthesising medical and actuarial expertise, is working across the public and private section to improve UK population health outcomes, and also to help pension scheme clients better understand their members’ longevity in a post-pandemic world. • We have developed market leading technology including LCP Advance, LCP InsurSight, and LCP Sonar. What do you believe sets you apart from your peers and contributes to this success? I am incredibly proud to be a leader of a firm of passionate people who care about tomorrow. Our people have gone above and beyond to provide an exceptional service to our clients, to each other, and to the wider community. We are curious about the world around us, and our work is powered by innovative tools to help our clients navigate and unpick the challenges they face. Our independence also means that the advice we give is bespoke and trusted. What are the key challenges facing your pension scheme clients at the current time and how are you helping them address these issues? I've been so proud of the dedication shown by my colleagues as well as others around the industry dealing with the market turbulence of the last few weeks, and we all need to keep delivering for our clients and putting them first. Looking ahead, we must think about what lessons need to be learned. As an industry we need to recognise that the world may have changed compared to the environment in which we have operated for much of the last decade. Risk models and a probabilistic view of the world can only take you so far. Stress testing against specific geopolitical or macroeconomic scenarios become an increasingly valuable tool as the world becomes ever more unpredictable. Alongside market volatility there are also a lot of regulatory challenges on the horizon for schemes to be grappling with. This includes the new funding code, pensions dashboards and new innovations such as CDCs. The last year has been transformational for LCP, not just because we are consolidating the outstanding growth we achieved the previous year, but also because we are investing for the future. Over the next few years we will be driving further innovation, continuing to invest in our people, services, and technology, to leave us well positioned to meet and exceed the needs of our current and future clients.
Sponsor Covenant/ IRM Adviser of the Year
"A firm that has demonstrated how it has consistently cared for its clients, colleagues and the community over the past 25 years"
Congratulations! Standard Life
Aegon UK Barnett Waddingham Cheviot Trust LCP Legal & General Investment Management Standard Life TPT Retirement Solutions
Interview: Gail Izat
Gail Izat (left) receives the award from Sally Phillips (right)
Standard Life says the last 25 years have undoubtedly been the most significant within its 200-year history. During this timeframe, the company has produced no less than 26 sector-firsts, all primarily designed to protect advisers, employers and members, while shaping the wider financial services industry. The three biggest achievements that Standard Life is particularly proud of include the way it has introduced a wide range of products and platforms – many of which have broken new ground and have empowered advisers, employers and members alike to take control of their pensions. An example of this is the way Standard Life has provided firsts in the way users can view, save and drawdown on their finances – not to mention help them make decisions within a personalised journey. One such recent example is its client analytics tool – an interactive, web-based dashboard, giving employers a single, real-time view of engagement data. Standard Life also prides itself on the way it has continually shaped the pensions industry. It says from being the first to offer capped drawdown within a workplace pension, to driving reforms in investment pathways, which served as a blueprint by the Financial Conduct Authority, Standard Life has set the pace within the last 25 years. It says such industry-defining actions are typically backed by sector-leading research and insight, often conducted in collaboration with universities or behavioural scientists, to really get under the skin of what drives members’ behaviour. In doing so, such studies also explore how they can best be supported in the future. Such innovation and insight has helped Standard Life to deliver consistently good returns, while maintaining high client satisfaction, which is consistently over 80% year on year, and currently at 90%). Consequently, the business has grown to boast over £44bn in assets under administration.
An extract from Standard Life’s original submission…
What does it mean to win this award? I am absolutely thrilled that Standard Life are proud winners of 25 Years of Excellence in Defined Contribution following on from our successful win of 20 years of Excellence in 2017. I couldn’t be more proud of the team for continually enhancing our propositions all designed with members at the heart of everything. What have been your main achievements as an organisation over the last few years? One of the biggest achievements over the last few years was the continuation of our exceptional service levels through tumultuous times, with consistently high member satisfaction scores. The pandemic, and now the cost-of-living challenges, have increased already high member vulnerability levels. I am particularly proud of our vulnerable customer programme, working with charities and behavioural psychology specialists to help wrap the right support around members. We have also continued to innovate to help members with their overall financial wellness and retirement planning. Increasing personalisation to support higher member engagement levels saw us give more control to members around what they see in their member dashboard, on-demand personalised video statements, our automated, dynamic communications with different messages and calls to action based on what we know about the member and actions taken, tools to support with overall financial planning such as our open finance platform, Money Mindset, and Homebuyer hub, an online coaching tool to help people save for their first home. For employers, trustees and advisers, the launch of Client Analytics gives them much more insight on their members including engagement levels and what PLSA Retirement Living Standards they are on track for. And the creation of our innovation lab in Edinburgh is supporting the co-creation of new initiatives. What do you believe sets you apart from your peers and contributes to this success? While we have been around for nearly 200 years, it is the last 25 years that have been the most influential in our history – not just because reforms have shaped our business, but because we’ve helped shape those reforms. We’ve harnessed the size and experience of a two-century-old business and combined it with the spirit of a challenger brand to continually develop solutions to some of the industry’s biggest challenges. Many of these initiatives, which were pioneering at the time, such as investment pathways, have since been widely adopted or emulated. In fact, in the last 25 years we’ve launched over 25 sector-firsts, which have helped advisers, employers, trustees and members with ever-changing trends and challenges by keeping them one step ahead, while helping to shape the industry. What are the key challenges facing your pension scheme clients at the current time and how are you helping them address these issues over the next 12 months? The pandemic, the cost-of-living crisis and now recession have increased the pressure on people already struggling to make ends meet. Underpinning each chapter of the crisis have been the same two fundamental problems: poor financial resilience and low financial capability. Our focus now is ensuring that employers and their scheme members feel supported during these challenging times.
"A firm that has continually shaped the pensions industry"
Congratulations! Columbia Threadneedle Investments
Cardano Columbia Threadneedle Investments M&G Investment Management Newton Investment Management Robeco Unigestion Wellington Management
Andrew Brown (right) receives the award from Sally Phillips (left)
Congratulations! XPS Pensions Group
Barnett Waddingham Broadstone Buck Capita Pension Solutions Hymans Robertson Isio Lane Clark & Peacock PwC XPS Pensions Group
contact
AWARD CATEGORIES
Home
What does it mean to win the award? We’re absolutely delighted to win these awards, and it’s especially pleasing to win the ‘hat-trick’ of three awards across the breadth of what we do in administration, actuarial and pensions consulting, and investment consulting. This reflects our uniform high-quality service, backed by the brilliant work of our people. What have been your main achievements as an organisation over the past 18 months? We are probably most proud of how our staff have supported our clients and each other to deal with and emerge from lockdown, while delivering good outcomes for clients and scheme members. We trained Mental Health Allies among our staff, and significantly progressed our sustainability and diversity & inclusion ambitions. We successfully offset carbon emissions across our entire supply chain too. We are also using our advisory position, with assets under advice of £113bn, to help clients use their influence for good. A strong values-led culture, combined with continued investment in what we do, leads to good business outcomes. We are proud to have achieved strong revenue growth over the period and to have added some fantastic new clients to the wide range of schemes and employers we work with. What do you believe sets you apart from your peers and contributes to this success? Our staff are experts, dedicated to their clients and unafraid of a challenge, not least what the last two years threw at us all. Our people are highly adaptable, and this has helped us maintain high levels of service. Having a strong and supportive employee culture delivers better results; this really sets us apart and is fundamental to our success. 95% of staff agree XPS is a good company to work for – we’re hugely proud of that. But we also want our clients to be delighted with the service we provide, so we’re really happy that 99% agree our collaborative approach sets us apart, as well as our relationship-led service and being easy to deal with. What are the key challenges facing your pension scheme clients at the current time and how are you helping them address these issues? Recent events have had a massive impact on funding and risk. For many this will have created opportunities, and all schemes must take stock of where they are and how they set a path that is right for them and their members. This includes ‘big picture’ questions about long-term strategies, of course, but there are also immediate questions in the detail; for example, ensuring benefit options are giving fair value. This all leads to a requirement for insight and clear advice. How will you continue to improve your services to pension scheme clients over the coming 12 months? First and foremost, we will continue to invest in our people and our culture. This is through comprehensive training and development as the world moves around us, with a huge focus on diversity and inclusion and quite simply being a brilliant place to work for everyone. We are delighted that 95% of our staff think we are a great place to work, but we want that to be higher still! We will continue to invest in propositions that will benefit our clients. We have developed new expertise and approaches in traditional fields – for example, we are very proud of our member analytics and demographics capability, which is truly different to anything in the market in terms of the ability to model the post-pandemic world around us in real time.
Interview: Paul Cuff
Standard Life’s Rhian Littlewood (left) and Sally Phillips (right) present the accolade to XPS Pensions Group’s Neil Lalley (centre left) and Shelley Jeffery (centre right)
An extract from XPS Pensions Group’s original submission…
During 2021, XPS continued to work hard to take care of its people, its clients and to deliver good outcomes for members. One of its key achievements during the year was creating an industry-first advisory partnership model with BT. It also invested heavily in new technology and systems to create new insights to ensure members’ views can be heard and taken seriously. XPS also had its best year yet for all business areas. Its interim results for the half year to September 2021 showed XPS Pensions Group revenues up 10%. Overall the firm acquired 118 new named clients, with 29 won through competitive tendering. Another key focus for XPS in 2021 was to help its clients to respond to the pandemic and keep them fully on top of changing regulations. In total the firm hosted 19 events with over 4,000 registrations and shared its platform with a community of over 30 Industry speakers. In addition it launched 11 thought leadership reports, 59 videos and over 120 individual briefings – resulting in more than 500,000 website views. XPS also created a new educational platform, XPSArena, a new learning resource available to all pension professionals to help inform and provide further professional development. However, one of the things XPS is most proud of is that it achieved all this while supporting each other – launching its Mental Health Allies programme and its new XPS Communities to help colleagues keep in touch during another year of public restrictions.
What does it mean to win the award? We’re absolutely delighted to win these awards, and it’s especially pleasing to win the ‘hat-trick’ of three awards across the breadth of what we do in administration, actuarial and pensions consulting, and investment consulting. This reflects our uniform high-quality service, backed by the brilliant work of our people. What have been your main achievements as an organisation over the past 18 months? We are probably most proud of how our staff have supported our clients and each other to deal with and emerge from lockdown, while delivering good outcomes for clients and scheme members. We trained Mental Health Allies among our staff, and significantly
"A firm that works hard to take care of its people, its clients and to deliver good outcomes for members"
progressed our sustainability and diversity & inclusion ambitions. We successfully offset carbon emissions across our entire supply chain too. We are also using our advisory position, with assets under advice of £113bn, to help clients use their influence for good. A strong values-led culture, combined with continued investment in what we do, leads to good business outcomes. We are proud to have achieved strong revenue growth over the period and to have added some fantastic new clients to the wide range of schemes and employers we work with. What do you believe sets you apart from your peers and contributes to this success? Our staff are experts, dedicated to their clients and unafraid of a challenge, not least what the last two years threw at us all. Our people are highly adaptable, and this has helped us maintain high levels of service. Having a strong and supportive employee culture delivers better results; this really sets us apart and is fundamental to our success. 95% of staff agree XPS is a good company to work for – we’re hugely proud of that. But we also want our clients to be delighted with the service we provide, so we’re really happy that 99% agree our collaborative approach sets us apart, as well as our relationship-led service and being easy to deal with. What are the key challenges facing your pension scheme clients at the current time and how are you helping them address these issues? Recent events have had a massive impact on funding and risk. For many this will have created opportunities, and all schemes must take stock of where they are and how they set a path that is right for them and their members. This includes ‘big picture’ questions about long-term strategies, of course, but there are also immediate questions in the detail; for example, ensuring benefit options are giving fair value. This all leads to a requirement for insight and clear advice. How will you continue to improve your services to pension scheme clients over the coming 12 months? First and foremost, we will continue to invest in our people and our culture. This is through comprehensive training and development as the world moves around us, with a huge focus on diversity and inclusion and quite simply being a brilliant place to work for everyone. We are delighted that 95% of our staff think we are a great place to work, but we want that to be higher still! We will continue to invest in propositions that will benefit our clients. We have developed new expertise and approaches in traditional fields – for example, we are very proud of our member analytics and demographics capability, which is truly different to anything in the market in terms of the ability to model the post-pandemic world around us in real time.
Congratulations! Scottish Widows
Aon Aviva Cushon Legal & General Mercer Nest Now Pensions Scottish Widows Smart Pension Standard Life TPT Retirement Solutions
Interview: Sharon Bellingham
Scottish Widows’ Maria Nazarova-Doyle (left), Graeme Bold (centre left) and Sharon Bellingham (centre right) receive the accolade from Sally Phillips
Building on the strengths of its 2020 proposition, Scottish Widows Master Trust had a strong year in 2021 – with funds under management more than doubling to £1.6bn and its membership increasing by more than two times to over 72,000 as the scheme facilitated the largest master trust to master trust scheme transfer in the market to date. Scottish Widows Master Trust also developed several new proposition features during the year. These include the rollout of the Scottish Widows mobile app to its master trust members and, as of the end of last year, the provider was seeing around 23,000 logins per quarter and has an app store rating of 4.6. Scottish Widows also rolled out its single customer view function to its master trust in 2021, allowing members with access to LBG Bank, Halifax or Bank of Scotland online banking to view their pension online alongside their bank accounts. Just over 43,000 members are in this position, of whom around 30,000 view their pension in this way every quarter. Master trust members are now also able to understand their investments’ impact and vote across a range of ESG themes, including carbon emissions and gender diversity through use of Scottish Widows’ Find Your Impact (FYI) feature in the app. Member votes are collated to help inform its stewardship strategy. In addition to an active stewardship strategy, Scottish Widows has collaborated with Blackrock to design the Blackrock ACS Climate Transition World Equity Fund. This fund is fully integrated in its recommended default, with an initial 10% having been invested, a weighting that is due to rise to 20% this year. Through screening and thematic investment methods, Scottish Widows has now divested £1.4bn of assets away from companies with the worst transition readiness scores and, through this fund, Scottish Widows has achieved a reduction in carbon emission intensity of over 50%, a 10% improvement on water management efficiency, and an increase in clean technology revenues of over 60%. In 2021, Scottish Widows also enhanced its financial wellness hub, Be Money Well, and has continued to innovate and build a stronger proposition for its members, driven by its five-year roadmap which focuses on making it easy for the member, helping everyone make better decisions, and delivering great outcomes for everyone, all underpinned by strong governance, service, and expert support.
An extract from Scottish Widow's original submission…
An extract from Scottish Widow’s original submission…
What does it mean to win this award? We’re absolutely delighted to receive this recognition and for the second year in a row! We’re all incredibly passionate about doing the best for members and supporting our employer community - this recognition is the icing on the cake. What have been your main achievements as an organisation over the past 18 months? We have accomplished a considerable amount but there are some standout achievements which immediately come to mind: • The launch of ‘Single Customer View’ for Master Trust has meant that members who use Lloyds, Halifax or Bank of Scotland online banking can automatically view their pension online alongside their bank accounts. Viewing everything in one place means that pensions remain front of mind and can be easily managed alongside day-to-day finances. • The evolution of our employee engagement program, which includes bespoke multichannel employee communication and direct member / trustee engagement. • The progression of our responsible investment and stewardship framework and through our ‘Find Your Impact’ App feature members can also understand the impact of their investments; they can share their views across a range of ESG themes and this rich insight provides valuable MI to employers and helps inform our stewardship strategy further. • We’re proud of the enhancements made to our financial wellness hub and the £11m investment in our award-winning vulnerable customer strategy – we remain very much focussed on supporting members during challenging times. What do you believe sets you apart from your peers and contributes to this success? Being part of Lloyds Banking Group means that we benefit from considerable investment, access to a wealth of insight and an ecosystem which supports an holistic approach to member support. This includes: • Ability for members to view pension alongside their bank account; • Our support for those who are in vulnerable circumstances, including the ability to identify and safeguard vulnerable customers across all group products with only one notification; • Bank standard data security; • A focus on human centred design and behavioural insights helps to develop meaningful solutions. What are the key challenges facing your pension scheme clients at the current time and how are you helping them address these issues? Finances are under pressure from the rise in the cost of living and, at the same time, we continue to face a retirement savings crisis. Our approach to the Pensions Engagement Season campaign had cost-of-living support very much at its heart - we remain focussed on supporting our members during these challenging times, helping them to take control of their finances and financial future. Our financial wellness hub is accessible via App and brings together information, guidance, tools and support from our charity partners (Mental Health UK and Macmillan). This covers all elements of personal finance and the impact of life events – this is further supported by webinars, video content and other forms of communications. How will you continue to improve your services to pension scheme clients over the coming 12 months? Following the evolution of our financial wellness hub, we are launching an interactive Financial Health Tool; this will provide members with a personalised summary of their financial health using our bank insights to compare to the nation, along with actionable insights and next-steps. Building on the success of 'Single Customer View' we are further integrating open banking and finance into members’ digital journeys. We already provide seamless access to the banking platform and the next stage in this journey will be introducing capability to App and supporting our non-bank members by providing tools to help manage wider finances.
"Provides a comprehensive and cost-effective workplace pension"
Aviva Legal & General Investment Management PensionBee Scottish Widows Standard Life
As one of the UK’s largest and longest-standing pensions providers, Standard Life understands it plays a pivotal role in leading the way with regards to sustainability. Armed with a vision to ‘help people secure a lifetime of possibilities’, the company has made sustainability the central pillar of its entire strategy. By supporting customers, colleagues and wider communities, this newfound sustainability-led emphasis has, the firm believes, delivered significant benefits for clients. In 2021, following ground-breaking insight to explore customers’ ever-evolving needs and how Standard Life can successfully support them throughout their lives, the provider introduced pioneering functionality into its client analytics tool. This analytics tool is a powerful data platform that provides employers with unprecedented insights into employees’ pensions engagement, enabling them to segment/target individuals, at the right time, with the right messages, based on their pension behaviour. It can even benchmark member engagement vs their own sector norm and the Standard Life norm. In a sector-first, Client Analytics now contains the largest, most advanced, most comprehensive incorporation of PLSA Retirement Living Standards (RLS) in the industry. In addition to this, following a group-wide survey, 63% of customers displayed one or more characteristics that could signal potential vulnerability. In response, Standard Life developed a leading vulnerability strategy to make its products/services more accessible and inclusive, while protecting its most vulnerable customers Standard Life’s customer protection programme includes support material such as real-life case studies, as well as a specially created e-learning course (produced in partnership with behavioural scientists) to help colleagues understand the nuances of vulnerability, and better support members. As a result of this initiative, satisfaction among Standard Life’s vulnerable customers increased to 90% in 2021. Performance has also been strong and, with its new sustainable fund delivering a 12-month growth rate of 15% in 2021, Standard Life is showing that responsible investment and strong returns can go hand-in-hand.
What does it mean to win this award? I am absolutely delighted for all my colleagues who continuously look for new ways to improve the experience for employers, trustees, advisers and members. Winning Pension Provider of the Year at these awards is a true testament to all our fantastic proposition enhancements, exceptional service, including our approach to vulnerable customers, and our pioneering research including our joint research initiative with the OECD. What have been your main achievements as an organisation over the past 18 months? We’ve introduced new initiatives to help people with their financial planning and decision making, while helping to tackle some of the growing member, industry and societal issues – from climate change to financial inclusion and equality, longevity and even social mobility. Some of our recent developments include Money Mindset, using open finance to help people with their overall financial management and goals, our online coaching tool within the app helping people save for their first home and the evolution of our online Client Analytics tool for clients, trustees and advisers with the incorporation of the PLSA Retirement Living Standards helping answer the question – what standard of living are my members on track for? With the increase in member vulnerability, further impacted by the recent cost of living challenges, I am particularly proud of our vulnerable customer programme and the support we wrap around customers. Our award-winning e-learning module helped all colleagues ‘walk in the shoes’ of vulnerable customers, ensuring that whether you are on the telephone with a customer or designing new propositions, vulnerability is front of mind supporting greater inclusion. How do you help members engage with their pensions and how do you plan to improve this approach over the next few months? Personalisation is key. Recognising difference and using dynamic, multi-channel communications to be more relevant helps increase member engagement. We also work with our psychology behavioural partners, Cowry Consulting, to make sure the messages, tone of voice and call to action are optimised again to truly resonate with members and support them on their savings journey. Standard Life is continually looking at ways to better understand members and provide innovative solutions to help them with their overall financial wellness. We have just launched our Plan Your Future hub in the member dashboard and mobile app to help people with their financial priorities, and will be enhancing this in the coming months, using data and member preferences to show even more relevant content and in the way each member wants to see it. Our joint research initiative with the OECD and our recent consumer attitudes research has shown some interesting trends around how gender, culture, ethnicity and socio-economic background can influence how people think, feel and approach retirement savings. We will be using the research findings to look at more ways we can connect with and engage members, recognising these differences. With members at the heart we will continue to listen and adapt to help and guide members every step of the way.
"The comprehensive way Standard Life incorporates the PLSA’s Retirement Living Standards into its client analytics tool is a sector first and shows how it is innovating to support both clients and members"
Congratulations! Mercer
Aon BlackRock Cardano Risk Management Charles Stanley & Co Columbia Threadneedle Investments Goldman Sachs Asset Management Kempen Capital Management Legal and General Investment Management Mercer Russell Investments Schroders Solutions (formerly River and Mercantile Solutions) SECOR Asset Management SEI
Mercer’s Kelly Bone (left) and Helen Hope (centre) collect the award from Sally Phillips (right)
An extract from Mercer's original submission…
During 2021, Mercer formally integrated its buyout expertise with its fiduciary management solution to give clients a complete end-to-end investment and governance solution. In addition to this, the firm revised portfolios to increase ESG integration. It also committed to net zero carbon emissions for its multi-asset funds by 2050, with a 45% reduction by 2030, and is already ahead of plan. Mercer said it improved client funding levels by 3.2% in 2021. Mercer said this was partly achieved through top quartile performance of its growth portfolios – 11.2% for its model growth portfolio – and through the value of dynamic asset allocation, which added a further 1.1%. In total, Mercer hit 171 de-risking triggers for clients during 2021 so they are taking on the least level of risk needed to fund their schemes. It had 13 clients complete their journey plans in 2021, four of which achieved full buyout. During 2021, Mercer also revamped its client reports to make them more timely and relevant, and easier for its clients to find the key information they need. Quarterly reporting saw the expansion of ESG metrics and improvements to attribution analysis. Mercer said it also brought forward many strategy reviews to ensure clients were best protected with inflation rising.
An extract from Mercer’s original submission…
Interview: Daniel Melley, partner – head of UK Investments
What does it mean to win this award? We are incredibly proud of the success we have achieved on behalf of our fiduciary clients and helping them to achieve their goals. This award win is testament to all the efforts across our investment, funding and risk transfer teams. However, given the significant upheaval in global markets and ongoing challenges faced by our clients, we will continue to strive to deliver service excellence, new investment ideas and the innovative approaches that they need. What have been your main achievements as an organisation over the past 18 months? In 2021 we onboarded 13 new UK DB fiduciary management clients with assets of c.£2.8bn. We were also appointed by three clients that decided to move from their existing fiduciary manager to Mercer as their new fiduciary partner. Key achievements for our clients include hitting 171 de-risking triggers in 2021, delivering top quartile performance for our growth portfolios, and saving clients an additional $8m in manager fee savings. More recently we have worked tirelessly to support our clients through the LDI crisis – looking after their assets and keeping them fully updated. What do you believe sets you apart from your peers and contributes to this success? We believe we have helped more fiduciary clients complete their journeys than any other fiduciary manager, whether that’s run-off or full buyout. Clients have seen funding levels improve, risk taken off the table via dynamic de-risking, innovative ideas incorporated and significant value add from tactical asset allocation. Our complete end-to-end investment and governance solution draws upon the full global resources that Mercer has to offer across multiple specialisms. Clients get the outcomes that they need from Mercer as their trusted partner. What are the key challenges facing your pension scheme clients at the current time and how are you helping them address these issues? Clearly the last couple of months have been focused on helping our clients navigate the UK Gilt crisis. We have been working in partnership with our clients to deleverage their LDI portfolios, manage the collateral calls, rebalance portfolios where needed and, in some cases, bring forward annual strategy reviews. Our focus during this period has been on the careful balancing of the risks facing our clients and trying to keep them on track versus their journey plan. On the positive side, while the crisis has seen large asset value falls it has also led to a number of schemes seeing their funding position improve and so buyout is now in reaching distance. Our integrated fiduciary management and risk transfer solution means we are well placed to support these clients and help them complete their journeys. The integration of ESG is another key challenge faced by our clients and we continue to work with them to help set carbon reduction targets, supported by climate transition plans, without altering investment objectives or expected returns How will you continue to improve your services to pension scheme clients over the coming 12 months? We are committed to continually evolving and improving the services we offer our fiduciary clients. We listen to what our clients need and then design solutions to meet those needs. For example, we are looking at launching new credit, risk transfer, sustainability and matching portfolio solutions during 2023, which we believe will enable clients to reach their end-goals more effectively.
Highly commended: Columbia Threadneedle
"Mercer provides its clients with a complete end-to-end investment and governance solution"
Congratulations! PGIM Fixed Income
Dodge & Cox Worldwide Investments Federated Hermes Fidelity International Insight Investment Janus Henderson Investors Legal and General Investment Management M&G Investment Management Morgan Stanley Investment Management Neuberger Berman PGIM Fixed Income T. Rowe Price TOBAM
Interview: Sarah McMullen, head of EMEA client advisory group
PGIM Fixed Income’s Mark Fulwood (left) collects the award from Sally Phillips (right)
During 2021, PGIM rolled out a range of innovative products for its UK pensions clients, including a securitised products mandate for a sophisticated UK pension scheme, a strategic income ESG strategy and a fixed income credit opportunities fund as well as several ESG funds. Importantly, PGIM said it looked at itself through the ESG lens that it holds up to its investments – launching initiatives to improve its own diversity and inclusion, corporate equality, sustainability and good governance, which received endorsement at the most senior level of PGIM Fixed Income and its parent company. In addition, despite pandemic-related volatility, PGIM Fixed Income delivered market-beating investment performance at below-average volatility – and its investments in bottom-up, fundamental research continued to pay off, and the average 24 years’ experience of our portfolio teams continued to place it near the top of the industry. Some in-person meetings were possible in 2021, and PGIM Fixed Income continued its online weekly, monthly and quarterly calls. In addition, despite Covid restrictions, it raised our service standards in ways that helped our clients in 2021 (and will help them in the long run). This included micro online surveys and “virtual coffee moments” as additional touch points, and much more detailed ESG reporting.
An extract from PGIM Fixed Income’s original submission…
What does it mean to win this award? Winning Fixed Income Manager of the Year is important external recognition of our investment capabilities, and of how we partner with UK clients. We’re honoured to be recognised in this way by our clients, their consultants and our peers. What have been your main achievements as an organisation over the past 18 months? As per our submission, we delivered strong returns and efficient risk management across the strategies in which our UK pensions clients invest. In addition, listening to and working with our clients to solve their investment challenges are important aspects of our client service. We’ve also continued to evolve our ESG capabilities. Besides integrating ESG across our investment process, our proprietary ‘ESG Impact Ratings’ evaluate the impact of an investment on the environment and on society. In that way, clients aren’t forced into a one-size-fits-all ESG framework, but they get a choice on how to meet their own, specific ESG needs. What do you believe sets you apart from your peers and contributes to this success? Our investment philosophy has always had a long-term orientation, grounded in fundamental security selection and risk management. One of our core tenets is that diversified portfolios, built on macroeconomic, credit and quantitative research, as well as risk management, can achieve consistent excess returns with high information ratios. It’s no coincidence that we employ one of the largest buy-side analyst teams (230-strong at the time of writing) focused on bottom-up idea generation and relative value analysis. In line with that long-term perspective, we pride ourselves on the continuity and expertise of our teams. Our portfolio managers and researchers, for example, have been with us for, on average, more than 16 years each. We believe stable investment and client service teams lead to stable processes, and that leads to consistent performance. Our collegial culture rewards not only individual initiative but also teamwork. So, as our professionals develop in their areas of expertise, they share that expertise for the greater good of the overall organisation. What are the key challenges facing your pension scheme clients at the current time and how are you helping them address these issues? The October leap in gilt yields was the most critical challenge for our UK pension fund clients this year, and we’re helping them with their allocations, funding levels and de-risking glidepaths. As part of that effort, our investment teams have helped clients understand what impact market volatility is having on liquidity and trading costs, but they’ve also put interesting market opportunities on clients’ radars. In ESG, making sure that clients’ ESG requirements are reflected in the portfolios that we manage for them is increasingly important. We also help clients meet their obligations through enhanced, bespoke reporting. We’re developing a temperature alignment tool to help clients with their decarbonisation journeys, and we’re also helping them meet their TFCD (Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures) obligations. How will you continue to improve your services to pension scheme clients over the coming 12 months? We continue to partner with pension schemes to help them meet their investment requirements. That’s leading to innovative new approaches, for example where we increase our client portfolios’ ESG or decarbonisation focus. Importantly, we’re known for providing clients with access to portfolio managers, analysts, risk managers and strategists, and for sharing our thought leadership with them. We continue to expand on those efforts as well.
“PGIM Fixed Income is a firm that can demonstrate significant innovation in addition to delivering market-beating investment performance at below-average volatility”
Congratulations! Aon
Aon AXA IM Alts Candriam Cheyne Capital Federated Hermes Fisher Investments Europe M&G Investment Management Patron Capital Robeco Tikehau Capital Vontobel Asset Management
Aon’s Maria Johannessen (left) collect the award from Sally Phillips (right)
"Aon’s global impact fund seeks to provide healthy financial returns to its clients while generating a positive environmental and social impact"
Highly commended: Patron Capital
Barker Tatham Investment Consultants Barnett Waddingham Bfinance Buck Hymans Robertson Lane Clark & Peacock Mercer MJ Hudson Redington XPS Pensions Group
Interview: Ben Gold
XPS Pensions Group’s Erica Hutley (centre left) and Guy Plater (centre right) collect the award from Aegon’s Linda Whorlow (left) and Sally Phillips (right)
XPS said that, in 2021, its clients needed innovative solutions, more access to information and insight, and ultimately a deeper collaborative relationship with the firm. The consultancy has risen to this challenge, as evidenced by its announcement in November 2021 of the firm’s appointment by BT, which reshaped its advisory approach to build a deeper partnership. 2021 was also the year that ESG and climate change took centre stage with the build-up to CoP26 in Glasgow and XPS has also led the industry on ESG issues, from going carbon neutral as a business, to sharing XPS’s ESG fund ratings and providing detailed feedback to fund managers to help them improve. The investment consultant said this demonstrates its emphasis on increasing transparency which is key to its approach. It has also provided greater transparency in 2021 to asset managers with an industry first of disseminating full disclosure of our research ratings to investment managers as well as its launch of XPSArena, a free to access knowledge hub for people in pensions. These achievements have also led to business success and XPS has grown its investment business by 26%. Alongside winning BT as a client, it was appointed by 24 new clients and more than doubled the assets under its advice. In summary, XPS said it looked after its people, its clients, and did all this while continuing to make the industry work better for pension schemes, and therefore ultimately their members.
What does it mean to win the award? We’re absolutely delighted to win this award, and it is extra special to do so alongside the actuarial and pensions consulting, and third-party administrator awards. It is brilliant recognition of our people’s hard work and dedication, and it shows we are meeting our primary objective to do a fantastic job for our clients and their scheme members. What have been your main achievements as an organisation over the past 18 months? We’re proud of how we have developed our business and culture and helped our clients. XPS became carbon neutral, and we continue to champion the inclusion of ESG and sustainability in client portfolios. We helped our clients navigate the market turmoil during the Covid crisis, and the recent gilt crisis. Our expert investment team has grown to 90 people and we’re so proud of how they have supported each other. And we’ve won some incredible new clients, growing our assets under advice to £113bn, which is testament to the quality of our proposition. What do you believe sets you apart from your peers and contributes to this success? At the heart of our approach is our ability to develop high-value partnerships with all our clients and the wider industry. This includes developing completely new ways of working with clients, as we did with BT, and ensuring all schemes regardless of size have access to the best investment thinking. Every client is different – by putting ourselves in their shoes we come up with simple, tailored advice, often developing innovative ideas to help trustees and sponsors solve their unique challenges. We’re pragmatic and commercial, delivering razor-sharp strategy execution, whether that’s through our brilliant transition service or negotiating better fee arrangements with asset managers. We make clients’ lives easier, for example, by developing our Concierge service that allows trustees to delegate much of the paperwork hassle involved with making investment changes. Finally, we’re not afraid to be disruptive to improve the industry, for example, by providing constructive feedback to fund managers to ensure our clients get the best investment outcomes. What are the key challenges facing your pension scheme clients at the current time and how are you helping them address these issues? Navigating the gilt crisis and the impact on clients is the current focus. Many schemes have seen significant improvements in their funding position, despite the immediate focus being on the liability hedging position. We are helping all our clients assess where they are and where they want to go from here. This includes the impacts of the new funding regulations and incorporates the insights from our XPS Member Analytics tools. We’re also passionate about ESG, sustainability, climate change and the positive impact pension schemes can have. We are helping all our clients understand these issues and the potential implications for their schemes and members. We are also driving industry improvement, requiring very high levels of ESG risk management within funds as a minimum before they can earn an XPS recommendation. How will you continue to improve your services to pension scheme clients over the coming 12 months? We’ll stay focused on developing our people and doing a great job for our clients, including DC services and fiduciary management oversight. We will continue to innovate in technology by, for example, developing our Scenario Analytics tool. We’ll continue to look for ways to make our clients’ lives easier, such as through our Concierge service. We’ll be even more demanding of fund managers to increase transparency, effectively manage risks and provide good value.
"XPS is developing deeper collaborative arrangements with its clients as a result of its commitment to innovation, insight and transparency"
Just Group Legal & General Assurance Society Pension Insurance Corporation Rothesay Scottish Widows Standard Life
Interview: Kunal Sood
Standard Life’s Rhian Littlewood (left) collects the award from Sally Phillips
Standard Life’s defined benefit solutions team entered the bulk annuity market for full scheme transactions at the start of 2020. As a new entrant to the market, it had to go the extra mile to prove its capability. The insurer successfully managed this, completing two of the three largest transactions in 2021, including the completion of a £1.7bn full scheme buy-in with the Gallaher Pension Scheme. As part of this transaction, Standard Life extended its proposition to provide additional flexibility in member options, demonstrating again its ability to provide solutions to support our customers. The firm also completed a transaction in 2021 for a client that was only prepared to support a transaction if it came with enhanced security via a contingent collateral arrangement due to the funding obligations on the employer. In order to help, Standard Life produced a novel solution, leveraging expertise from around its business to form a team who could structure a tailored solution to meet its client’s needs. Standard Life is continually developing its offering to provide the best experience it can to its customers. The firm prides itself on being customer obsessed and putting its policyholders at the heart of everything it does – knowing that member support, experience and flexibility is a key factor in decision making for trustees. An example of its drive to create change and provide flexibility for members is the way it has been working closely with its colleagues that offer DC workplace pensions, and has developed a joined-up DC/AVC solution to schemes that need it. This allows members to take their benefits in a tax-efficient and flexible way.
What does it mean to win the award? We are incredibly proud to have had our achievements recognised with this award. It represents the industry’s recognition of an incredible growth story for Standard Life. 2021 was a year of transformational change for our Defined Benefit Solutions team: our market share more than doubled, growing from 6% to 15%, and our team grew four-fold. In addition, our presence in the market and reputation as a leading player has now been cemented with some high-profile successes. These success can be attributed to an ambitious and clear vision, delivered through the exceptionally hard work and dedication of a talented team. What have been your main achievements as an organisation over the past 18 months? We have been through a period of rapid growth and change, moving from being a small specialist player to a market leader. Financially, we delivered £950m of shareholder value in 2021, a 55% increase on the prior year. We have been successful on a range of transactions, with the largest sized at just under £2bn and incorporating a full spectrum of challenges and complexities. What do you believe sets you apart from your peers and contributes to this success? Our people have been the driving force in this success and we are proud to have maintained high employee satisfaction, with a Net Promoter Score of +58. We have built a team of highly ambitious, motivated people, but maintained a collaborative culture where we support everyone to be the best they can be. As part of a FTSE 100 business, we have the benefit of a large and stable balance sheet backing us, but we have combined this with agile governance and a solutions-focused mindset, enabling us to deliver for clients time and time again. What are the key challenges facing your pension scheme clients at the current time and how are you helping them address these issues? Pension schemes have had to contend with dramatic levels of volatility this year. Although funding levels have, on the whole, improved as a result of market conditions, different schemes have had very different experiences. On top of this, schemes are facing increased regulatory pressures taking up trustee time and attention. By working with schemes to de-risk, we are able to provide them with the certainty they need to make sure their members’ benefits will be paid. How will you continue to improve your services to pension scheme clients over the coming 12 months? We are committed to continuing to develop our proposition. In particular, we are investing heavily in member services in order to build a market leading customer services proposition. This will ensure that scheme members and ultimately our policyholders are well looked after to and through retirement.
"Standard Life has an innovative approach that can tailor solutions to meet its clients’ needs"
Barnett Waddingham Buck Equiniti HS Pensions Hymans Robertson Isio Quantum Advisory Spence & Partners Trafalgar House XPS Pensions Group
Interview: David Watkins
Lexis Nexis Risk Solutions’ Alan Clay (left) and Sally Phillips (right) present the award to XPS Pensions Group’s Darryl James (centre)
IN 2021 XPS’s key focus remained on providing a first-class, forward-thinking pensions administration service to its clients and members, despite the challenges of the pandemic. During 2021 XPS also opened new offices in Portsmouth, Middlesbrough and Leeds and opened its new Contact Centre. The firm’s administration staff numbers increased from 720 to 770 over the period and in its results for the period to 20 September 2021, its administration business reported revenue growth of 9%. It also won 21 new administration clients during the award period, representing over 80,000 members – also onboarding 11 schemes remotely. Service level adherence remained high during 2021 despite the ongoing challenges with Covid-19, with over 500,000 pieces of work processed and SLA’s at 90% or above across the year. XPS continued to invest in people, processes and technology to help its clients meet the challenges presented by the on-going GMP reconciliation and equalisation initiatives and protecting members from pension scams. XPS has also been keen to ensure that its clients are presented with the opportunity to address dashboard readiness as part of these wider data focused projects, rather than seeing that as a subsequent step.
"Provides a first-class, forward-thinking pensions administration service to its clients and members"
What does it mean to win the award? We are absolutely delighted to win this award again – for the third time in four years. It is an accolade made extra special by the awards won by our colleagues in actuarial and pensions consulting and investment consulting. The recognition demonstrates the hard work of everyone at XPS Administration, and our colleagues across the group, and highlights how we have continued to make a real difference to our clients and their members. What have been your main achievements as an organisation over the past 18 months? We are proud of the way we have emerged from the pandemic, having helped our clients, their members, and our people through some extremely difficult times. We have developed our culture and our values, introducing a new flexible working model, My XPS My Choice, that works for us and, importantly, for our clients. At the same time, the administration business has grown dramatically. Since our merger in 2018, our members under management have increased from 500,000 to just over one million across the private and public sectors. This has been a result of organic new business wins, first-time outsourcing, and acquisitions. In 2022 we launched a new contact centre in Middlesbrough to add a new triage facility and to support specific client campaigns, which has had fantastic feedback from clients and members. Other areas of development have been the introduction of an apprenticeship programme, improvement of our communications via Artificial Intelligence, the launch of our XPS Scam Forensics service, investing in digital communication options for members, and making big enhancements in our cyber security. What do you believe sets you apart from your peers and contributes to this success? Our ethos is always to provide a personal approach; we put members at the heart of everything we do. We are UK based, with no large service centres or functional silos, and we do not offshore services. We also look after our people, who in turn look after our clients’ members; our employee and client satisfaction survey results were 95% and 99% respectively this year. We have highly trained staff and a positive and inclusive culture, as evidenced via our renewed Investors in People silver accreditation. What are the key challenges facing your pension scheme clients at the current time and how are you helping them address these issues? We are doing everything we can to help our clients and their members navigate the cost-of-living crisis. We have increasingly worked with our clients on using clear communications and helping members access information and support when needed. We also continue to develop our Scam Protection team. We have reviewed over 9,200 cases, supporting over 400 schemes. The Pensions Dashboard is a hot topic too and our dedicated team are working with a leading provider to deliver an integrated solution that will benefit members. How will you continue to improve your services to pension scheme clients over the coming 12 months? We are continuing to invest significantly in our technology. For example, we recently purchased our own administration system, which allows us to develop enhancements more quickly and efficiently, focusing on those that will truly benefit members. Our communications team is growing too, and this will be a key area as we continue developing our capability to educate members and encourage them to engage with their pensions. We will continue to focus on delivering a first-class service and to treat every member as an individual.
Congratulations! Isio
Citrus Deloitte Pensions Master Plan Isio TPT Retirement Solutions
Beach Point Capital Management’s John Quintanar (left) and Sally Phillips (right) present the award to Isio’s Andrew Goddard
Highly commended: TPT Retirement Solutions
Congratulations! AXA Investment Managers and Mercer
abrdn Alpha Real Capital AXA Investment Managers Columbia Threadneedle Investments Legal and General Investment Management Mercer
Mercer UK’s Helen Hope and AXA Investment Managers’ Monique Carter collect the accolades from Sally Phillips
abrdn Border to Coast Mercer Mobius Life SEI
Mercer receives the award from Sally Phillips
Beach Point Capital Management Columbia Threadneedle Investments Mercer Newton Investment Management Pictet Asset Management TOBAM
Mercer’s Matt Simms receives the award from Sally Phillips
Barnett Waddingham Buck Hymans Robertson Lane Clark & Peacock XPS Pensions Group
Legal and General Investment Management’s Stuart Murphy (left) and Sally Phillips (right) present the accolade to LCP’s Stephen Budge
"LCP is a business that has grown substantially in size, expertise and reputation"
Aon Border to Coast Capita Pension Solutions Dalriada Trustees Gowling WLG (UK) Hymans Robertson Lane Clark & Peacock PwC Sacker & Partners Standard Life Travers Smith XPS Pensions Group
BWD’s Rob Hammond (left) and Sally Phillips (right) present the accolade to LCP’s Jill Ampleford (centre left) and Francesca Bailey (centre right)
Diversity and Inclusion Award
"LCP prides itself on placing diversity and inclusion at the heart of its core business priorities"
Allen & Overy Aon Buck Cardano Hymans Robertson Lane Clark & Peacock Mercer SECOR Asset Management
LCP’s Charlie Finch collects the award from Sally Phillips
"LCP showcases continual innovation and tailored client service in pension scheme derisking"
Cardano EY-Parthenon Grant Thornton UK Lane Clark & Peacock PCS (Purbeck Covenant Services) PwC RSM
LCP’s Jonathan Wolff (left) and Francesca Bailey (centre) receive the award from Sally Phillips
Highly commended: PCS (Purbeck Covenant Services)
Congratulations! West Midlands Pension Fund
Aon Capita Pension Solutions Railpen LPPA MyCSP Punter Southall Aspire SAGA Group Smart Pension Standard Life TPT Retirement Solutions West Midlands Pension Fund XPS Pensions Group
Congratulations! Darwin Alternative Investment Management
Alpha Real Capital AMP Capital Beach Point Capital Management BlackRock BNP Paribas Asset Management Cheyne Capital Darwin Alternative Investment Management GLIL Greencoat Capital J.P. Morgan Asset Management LGT Capital Partners M&G Investment Management Unigestion
Congratulations! PensionBee
Cushon HSBC Hymans Robertson Isio Legal & General Mercer Nest PensionBee Scottish Widows Standard Life TPT Retirement Solutions Tumelo
Congratulations! BlackRock
AllianceBernstein Aon BlackRock Legal & General Investment Management
BlackRock Columbia Threadneedle Investments William Blair and Company
Congratulations! Punter Southall Aspire
CACEIS Mercer MorganAsh Nest Insight Pensions Administration Standards Association (PASA) Pension Playpen Punter Southall Aspire Quietroom Rothesay XPS Pensions Group
Highly commended: The Pensions Administrations Standards Association
Congratulations! Morgan Stanley Investment Management
Artisan Partners UK Morgan Stanley Investment Management Muzinich & Co Neuberger Berman Riscura William Blair Investment Management
Congratulations! Fidelity International
Artisan Partners UK Dodge & Cox Worldwide Investments Fidelity International Fisher Investments Europe Local Pensions Partnership Investments Morgan Stanley Investment Management (MSIM) Polen Capital T. Rowe Price William Blair Investment Management
Congratulations! RBC Global Asset Management
abrdn Alpha Real Capital Aon AXA Investment Managers Candriam Federated Hermes Legal & General Investment Management LGT Capital Partners Morgan Stanley Investment Management Natixis Investment Managers Railpen RBC Global Asset Management
Aon AQR Capital Management BNP Paribas Asset Management Invesco Research Affiliates Global Advisors (RAFI) Unigestion
Congratulations! PwC
Barnett Waddingham Buck EY Isio Lane Clark & Peacock PwC Redington XPS Pensions Group
Congratulations! 20-20 Trustees
20-20 Trustees Dalriada Trustees ndapt PAN Trustees Punter Southall Governance Services Ross Trustees ZEDRA (formerly PTL)
Congratulations! Mobius Life
Mobius Life Phoenix Corporate Investment Services (part of Phoenix Group)
Congratulations! Insight Investment
Artisan Partners UK Dodge & Cox Worldwide Investments Fidelity International Impax Asset Management Insight Investment RBC Global Asset Management Robeco Royal London Asset Management (RLAM) Unigestion
abrdn BlackRock BTPS Columbia Threadneedle Investments Insight Investment Legal and General Investment Management
Congratulations! Eversheds Sutherland
Allen & Overy Arc Pensions Law Baker McKenzie Burges Salmon CMS UK Eversheds Sutherland Gowling WLG Linklaters Pinsent Masons Sacker & Partners Squire Patton Boggs (UK) Travers Smith
Pension Lawyers of the Year
Congratulations! Gowling WLG (UK)
Allen & Overy Eversheds Sutherland Gowling WLG (UK) Pinsent Masons Sackers
Congratulations! Patron Capital
AXA IM Alts Cheyne Capital Columbia Threadneedle Investments Federated Hermes Invesco M&G Investment Management Patron Capital
ABAKA BlackRock Capita Pension Solutions Punter Southall Aspire SEI
Congratulations! Knowa
ABAKA Capita Pension Solutions Cardano Cushon Equiniti Knowa Lane Clark & Peacock Legal & General LexisNexis® Risk Solutions Legal & General Investment Management Mantle Service Smart Pension XPS Pensions Group
Highly commended: XPS Pensions Group
