Pensions & benefits

Employer covenant consulting

Pragmatic and focussed advice from market-leading covenant and regulatory experts, helping clients to make the best decisions around risk.

Securing the future – the expanding role of the employer covenant

In this webinar, our team of covenant experts share how covenant advice is evolving, both in the context of changing pensions regulation, but also to adapt to developing scheme and employer circumstances, and increased macroeconomic risks.

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Contingent funding handbook

Contingent funding solutions for DB pension schemes can be a great way to protect member benefits, as well as other stakeholders of the sponsoring employer. It is therefore very important for both sponsors and trustees to understand the range of options available.

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Strategic funding in the new pensions era

In this webinar our experts will cover the role that contingent funding solutions have to play in the new pensions landscape and what we can expect to see in this important area in the future.

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Chart your own course

Taking control of your journey

Our sixth annual report is built around the results of our annual survey of the DB pension scheme market and provides insights across a whole range of areas of DB strategy and endgame planning.

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Beacon

Helping trustees and pension scheme sponsors better manage climate risks and opportunities

Beacon is an intuitive tool that helps pension scheme stakeholders better understand and engage with climate risks and opportunities, providing clear actions that are tailored to their unique circumstances.

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Seize the moment

A pivotal opportunity for corporate sponsors of DB pension schemes

This report highlights the variety of options now open to mature DB schemes approaching the end of their journey and urges schemes to get their strategy right before making their plan of action.

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Understanding prospects for sponsors and how much reliance DB schemes can place on the employer covenant can be challenging in today’s uncertain world. We offer tailored advice to schemes of all sizes, their sponsors, investors and lenders, focussed on understanding the key financial and non-financial risks facing the sponsor, and how these interact with the risks facing the scheme. The support we provide helps our clients make better strategic decisions across their scheme’s journey plan.

Our award-winning covenant consulting team enhances trustee and corporate approaches to DB schemes by analysing a sponsor’s financial performance, position and prospects.

We are experts in assessing business and sector-specific information and explaining it in simple and actionable terms, empowering clients to make effective decisions.

Working within a pensions consultancy, we take a bigger-picture perspective when providing advice, with a heavy focus on how our reporting can contribute to an effective integrated risk strategy. We focus our work on financial and non-financial indicators including longer-term sector trends. Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) and sustainability risk assessments come as standard in our advice and we utilise the innovative technology we have developed to drive engagement around key issues (for example Beacon – our intuitive climate risk review tool).

Our covenant assessments for triennial valuations help set funding and investment strategies. Sponsor strength can also change quickly, triggered by a range of events such as fluctuations in trading performance, changing market dynamics or matters impacting upon the economic environment more generally. We therefore provide tailored covenant monitoring to fit with specific requirements, ranging from media monitoring to preparing periodic integrated financial updates. As well as trustee advisory work, we assist many sponsors in understanding their DB risk to help solve their pension problems. Working for both trustees and sponsors really helps us to see both sides of the story and ultimately achieve outcomes which work for both stakeholders.

We are also specialists in providing covenant advice when corporate transactions occur, to help our trustee clients negotiate any necessary mitigation and to help our corporate, investor and lender clients navigate the risks created by the Pension Schemes Act 2021.

Moving from a traditional employer covenant to an insurer covenant via a buy-in or buy-out can also be a big change for a scheme’s security, and we are market leaders at guiding key stakeholders via our Insurer Financial Risk Review service, as well as helping trustees to understand how the strength of an insurer or superfund compares to their existing covenant support.