Straight to content

Fiduciary management

If you’re here, you’re probably looking for a fiduciary manager. That means you’re obliged to act in the best interests of your beneficiaries – pension members, policyholders, and so on. In law and in practice, other people put their trust in you. It’s a big responsibility and a difficult job – particularly if it’s your part-time job.

This website contains marketing material about our fiduciary management service. This website does not represent impartial advice on this service. In certain cases, you are required to conduct a competitive tender process prior to appointing a fiduciary manager. Guidance on running a tender process is available from the Pensions Regulator.

Who’s accountable?

There are lots of firms and services that could help you and your colleagues do your jobs well.

 

In considering these alternatives, the most important question is one of governance: which decisions do you feel comfortable making as a board, and which decisions do you want to delegate to full-time specialists? In other words: who will be accountable for decisions?

 

 

These decisions and associated actions run the scope of:

  • strategy: target returns, tolerable risk, strength of covenant, journey planning
  • implementation: portfolio construction, fund manager selection, liability hedging, operations (custody, bank accounts, cash management). We’ve described our approach to investing here
  • administration: member communications, regulatory compliance, reporting and accounts

From full-service to pick-and-mix

A growing number of boards have decided to use fiduciary management to help with these decisions and actions. A fiduciary manager will help you better prepare for, and control the outcome of your decisions. A fiduciary manager typically takes responsibility for all the decisions relating to a scheme’s assets and liabilities and looks after all or most of a scheme’s assets, acting as a single point of contact and accountability for boards.

 

There are ‘full-service’ versions of fiduciary management, where all but the most important strategy decisions are delegated. There are also ‘pick-and-mix’ versions, where boards delegate some decisions and actions but not others, depending on the board’s capabilities and the fund’s circumstances. Boards then hold the fiduciary manager to account for its decisions, performance, client service and value-for-money.

 

It’s important to bear in mind that fiduciary management isn’t right or necessary in every case. We’re happy to discuss your board’s capabilities and requirements and go from there.

Who are we?

Cardano pioneered fiduciary management 15 years ago, and we’re still the only independent specialist helping boards in the UK. Over this period, we’ve helped fiduciaries like you to meet their obligations. We’ve secured some clients’ liabilities with insurance companies, which is hugely satisfying for us – even if it means we lose a long-standing client.

 

 

Why choose Cardano for Fiduciary management?

We are a purpose-built, privately owned fiduciary manager. This is what we do. We are not an employee benefits consultant that has gradually evolved into an investment manager. Nor are we a global investment manager offering lots of different products to clients with different needs.

the value of different

Our take on journey planning

We explore a variety of journey planning solutions that will help you keep your pension scheme on track to meeting its objectives.