Pope Anderson LLP

Our Services

• Regular monitoring of performance.
• Strategy advice.
• Training to trustees and employers - so as to better understand the implications of any strategy and to develop strategies that meet the required aims.
• Others as required (manager research, ALM modelling...)

Our Focus

• A Common sense approach focussing on getting the important areas right without spending disproportionate effort and cost tinkering around the edges.

• The relationship between the Investment Strategy and the Funding/Liability Strategy is vital. Although this has always been a consideration, the tools available were often quite blunt which in reality meant that whilst the long term average positions may have worked out, the shorter term experience could be quite volatile. 

• Asset from allocation rather than active stock selection is also paramount. 90%+ of a scheme’s return comes the asset allocation decisions. Having 70% or 30% exposure to equity markets at any particular point is far more important than whether you have a first of third quartile manager choosing the stocks. As we have seen in recent years, this can be just noise by comparison to general market movements.

• Target Return is an approach that is appropriate for most pension schemes on their journey along the de-risking path. It aims to tie in the investment target with the liability/funding target by focusing on the asset allocation decisions, to reduce volatility and unexpected spikes in deficits from valuation to valuation.

• This does reduce the opportunity for longer term consulting fees but we believe it is right to be considered for all but the largest schemes and we are happy to explain why.

If you would like to know a bit more about our approach then please read on here or contact one of the partners for a chat about whether this approach might be worth looking at for your scheme.