New investment manager appointed

Back in 2015 the Trustees appointed Aon, a well-respected firm of consultants and investment managers, to manage the assets of the Uniper Group of the ESPS.

Over the last two years, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) - a non-ministerial UK government department, responsible for strengthening business competition and preventing and reducing anti-competitive activities - has been undertaking a review of the investment marketplace in the United Kingdom.

The result of the CMA’s review is that where investment mandates were granted without a competitive tender having taken place (like ours was back in 2015) the trustees of such schemes must undertake a competitive tender on or before June 2021.

As a result of this instruction the Trustees of the Uniper Group of the ESPS entered into a Competitive Tender Process, along with a significant number of other pension funds. 

This tender exercise is now complete and it has been decided that Kempen Capital Management should be awarded the mandate to manage the assets of the Uniper Group of the ESPS moving forward.

Matt Bayes Chairman of the Trustees made the following statement:

“Following on from a competitive tender exercise, we have recently appointed Kempen as the new fiduciary manager of our pension scheme assets. Kempen will take over from Aon, whom we inherited as fiduciary manager on creation of the Uniper Group of the ESPS as part of the One2Two project.

The role of the fiduciary manager is to implement our investment strategy and the day to day management of our pension assets.  They have an extensive knowledge of the different types of investment managers, the particular assets in which they invest and their approach. They can then put together the right mixture of managers to allow the scheme to deliver the returns required to provide for members’ benefits as they fall due.

Fiduciary managers are able to move quickly to make the necessary changes to react to both short term and long term changes in investment markets.

We look forward to a long and successful partnership with Kempen.”

Although Aon has not managed to retain the management of the assets, the Trustees would like to express their thanks to them for all their work since the inception of Uniper in the UK back in 2015. Aon has retained the actuarial mandate so the Trustees will still continue to work with the company going forward.

If you have any queries about this news, please email adrian.furnell@uniper.energy