SYNTHESIS ENTERPRISE SOLUTIONS

Helping Institutional Investors to Achieve More

Improving Client Outcomes

Our business was founded to help investors to achieve more. We do this by providing an independent and expert perspective.

We help Institutional Asset Owners to meet their goals through improved investment effectiveness, efficiency and results.

We help Asset Managers to increase market penetration, through improved alignment of product offerings to the strategic needs of Institutional Asset Owners.

We look to directly support the governance of select enterprises through Non-Executive Director appointments, or by serving as Strategic Adviser to boards and committees, as appropriate.

ABOUT OUR FIRM

DB Trustee Checklist: Is "Wait and See" a Surplus Governance Strategy?

If you're a trustee of a DB scheme in surplus, you're probably being cautious about distribution. That's understandable - it's safer to wait, see what others do, avoid being first-movers. But here's the question: Are you being appropriately cautious because you have a robust framework telling you to wait? Or are you defaulting to inaction because you lack a framework to make confident decisions? There's a crucial difference. Use this checklist to assess which camp you're in.

Case Study: Boutique Asset Manager

Helping a new entrant to gain insight, manage risk and drive marketability for a new product. Background Boutique asset manager looking to launch a new alternatives investment product providing capital direct-to-consumer. Transformational business model intending to disrupt an established industry. Capital to be supplied by institutional investors, including UK pension funds in exchange for income and capital returns. Early engagement occured ahead of the launch of the

A New Era for DB Pension Risk Transfer

The recently announced agreement for Aberdeen to take over the sponsorship of the DB pensions of Stagecoach [1] marks an evolution in the UK pension risk transfer market. Traditional fiduciary management focuses on setting, managing and evolving investment strategies for DB schemes, whilst OCIO arrangements go further by absorbing operational responsibilities which can include the integration of legacy investment staff into the OCIO's operations. But in both of these cases t

HOW WE CAN HELP

Areas in which we add value

We bring over 20 years' experience helping boards to achieve objectives and better align risks taken with opportunities at the intersection of investments and pensions. We apply our proprietary “3D approach” - of Discovery, Development and Delivery - to your situation to resolve your particular challenge. We work collaboratively and constructively to achieve the desired outcome.

Example situations where we can help:

"New Endgame"
A new endgame - for example run-on to generate surplus - becomes possible due to performance of DB scheme. We can help consider the goal and to what extent ‘productive assets’ ought to feature into future investment strategy.
”Assets to insure”
DB Assets are misaligned with insurer pricing, with a risk of missing out on a future transaction due to mismatched price movements or illiquidity. Our review can help to reduce the risk of missing out.
“New product alignment”
Specialist Asset Manager looking to grow in the UK Institutional market. Using our knowledge and experience advising institutional investors, we can help to deliver a more relevant offer that is calibrated to the needs of investors.
“Align spending and risk”
A charitable foundation looking to better align a sustainable level of risk in the investments with its long-term spending ambitions.
“Join / Support our board”
Organisation would like to appoint a Non Executive Director, Investment Committee member or a Strategic Advisor to the board*

*Assessed for fit on a case-by-case basis. Depending on the situation this may be an appointment of our officer(s) in an individual rather than a corporate capacity.

SYNTHESIS ENTERPRISE SOLUTIONS

Investment. Governance. Experts.

VALUE ADDED

We believe that addressing client investment governance challenges can add significant value over time. This could act to provide additional security to members, bring forward timeframes to the endgame or provide companies with the room to redeploy capital towards future business growth.

ALL ROUND EXPERIENCE

We have worked with Asset Owners such as Defined Benefit schemes, Charities, Endowments and Foundations, and with Asset Managers, on full multi-asset investment strategy design and formulation, advice on required returns and risk to meet spending or funding goals, design and implementation of investment governance frameworks, LDI, Liquidity and cashflow matching, flight path design and implementation.

We have worked with clients of a range of sizes and financial positions including those targeting a high level of growth to solve funding challenges through to working to support the execution of derisking transactions including buyins and buyouts for fully-funded, mature plans.

NEXT STEPS

Contact us to book a no-obligation exploratory call where we can better understand the specific challenges your organisation faces and determine how we can help.

SYNTHESIS ENTERPRISE SOLUTIONS

ABOUT OUR FIRM

DB Trustee Checklist: Is "Wait and See" a Surplus Governance Strategy?

Case Study: Boutique Asset Manager

A New Era for DB Pension Risk Transfer

Subscribe Form

HOW WE CAN HELP

SYNTHESIS ENTERPRISE SOLUTIONS

VALUE ADDED

ALL ROUND EXPERIENCE

NEXT STEPS