Keeping portfolios on top. Fiduciary management that thinks ahead.

For 15 years, Mercer has provided fiduciary management / OCIO services to a range of institutional investors – from pension schemes to endowments, foundations, insurers and wealth managers. Our dynamic solutions, global intellectual capital and manager research help us to deliver for clients.
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What is fiduciary management?

Time, expertise and confidence

Lean on our consultants to provide the advice, insight, implementation and operations your portfolio needs to help you invest with confidence. Explore what our range of investment solutions could mean for your portfolio today.
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Put simply, fiduciary management is the combination of investment advice with implementation. Institutional Investors are freed up to focus on strategic decision making and long-term outcomes.

Investment challenges such as; increasing complexity, ESG, sustainability and managing ongoing costs have increased the demand for management solutions.

Mercer was one of the UK’s earliest providers of fiduciary management services. We provide single asset class or portfolio solutions. Increasingly larger asset owners are redefining their requirements in terms of OCIO (Outsourced Chief investment Officer).

Broadly speaking, fiduciary services can deliver five key advantages:

  • Flexible and robust governance

    We believe the best approach is to tailor fiduciary management solutions to a client’s specific needs and circumstances. Clients can phase in new ideas at their own pace.

  • De-risking

    Our flagship DB pensions solution includes automatic de-risking triggers to lock in funding level gains. A well-implemented de-risking programme gives you increasing certainty that your funding position will be ‘locked in’ over time and there will be no nasty surprises.

  • Access highly rated investment managers

    With more than 200 investment researchers, we offer access to some of the best thinking in the market and quality managers who can help generate outperformance. In particular, we have significant resources focused on providing access to diversified collections of specialist private markets managers: designed to improve portfolio efficiency, these portfolios have produced strong returns.

  • Cost savings

    We leverage our global scale to achieve some of the most competitive fees in the market. Our global implementation framework ensures that each client receives the same access to highly-rated investment managers at the same, low underlying management costs. Any fee discounts we negotiate pass through to our clients.

  • ESG integration

    Our investment portfolios reflect ESG themes and keep our clients ahead of their regulatory obligations. Many institutional investors want to integrate ESG into their decision making but struggle to do so given various constraints. Our fiduciary management solution has these themes built-in.

Read more about our investment services

Many investors seek guidance on strategic asset allocation, manager research, portfolio construction and risk and reporting, as well as day-to-day operational support. These are our fiduciary management / OCIO solutions, which can be used alongside broader investment consultancy.

Implementing our investment solutions typically instills greater confidence: it gives you the support of investment professionals without ceding control over your investments. We offer a range of tools that you can use to help solve your investment challenges.

  • Investment consulting

    For more than 40 years, Mercer Investment Consulting has been a leader in the UK market. Through intensive global research, intellectual capital and specialist solutions, we create value for pension funds, endowments, foundations and other investors.

  • Sustainable investment

    Drawing on two decades of experience, we offer research, advice, tools and solutions to help you wherever you are on your sustainable investing journey.

  • Endowments, foundations & charity investment solutions

    We have been working with endowments, foundations and charities for more than 50 years. Our independent investment research, advice, and solutions are customised to your organisation and positioned to help you seek better investment outcomes, whilst also pursuing your mission.

  • Insurance companies

    We have been working with insurance companies of all sizes for more than 30 years and understand the unique complexities and requirements of the industry. We offer advice and resources to help you transform your investment program into a strategic differentiator.

  • Wealth managers & financial intermediaries

    We help wealth managers and financial intermediaries build custom portfolios and pursue investment opportunities for clients across geographies, asset classes, and public and private markets.

  • Alternatives & private markets

    We can help you generate new ideas and uncover innovation across all alternative investment asset classes, and source quality managers and strategies to suit your specific needs.

Is your portfolio prepared for today’s exceptional challenges?

Institutional investors have rarely faced greater challenges. Rising interest rates, geopolitical uncertainty and inflation are creating headwinds for financial markets, while regulatory requirements are becoming more complex.

At such a testing time, institutional investors need to address challenges in the following areas:

  • Achieving real investment returns in an uncertain environment.
  • Ensuring the suitability of your investment strategy and investment managers.
  • Increasing complexity and the risk of regulatory requirements.
  • Managing liquidity.
  • Operational inefficiencies and implementation timelines.
  • Manager fees, transparency and other costs.

For many institutional investors, portfolios structures that have worked well for the last few decades are under pressure. This is a crucial moment to stress test investment beliefs and strategies.

We work in partnership with clients, delivering access to the best thinking in the market. We help you to analyse the challenges you face, giving you the knowledge and confidence to make effective decisions. As you choose to phase in new ideas and asset classes, we have the flexibility to do so at whatever pace suits you.
Dan Melley

Partner at Mercer, Commercial Head of Investments

Mercer CIOs' views on investment trends and challenges

Alison Bostock shares her experience

Even in the best of times, defined benefit (DB) pension schemes have to be able to respond quickly to lock in funding gains. Hear Alison’s story about the benefit of investment solutions – Alison Bostock, Trustee Director at PTL

Addressing complex investment challenges

Three steps for optimising your investment portfolio

  1. Review and adapt your governance framework.
    Untangling complexity and preparing to face the future is essential in today’s changing markets. If you believe you need to improve your governance and oversight, while keeping costs down, we can provide the support you need now and in the future.
  2. Assess your portfolio against your future objectives.
    Thinking critically about your investment portfolio compared with your future objectives is the first step towards solving any problems. We work closely with our clients to design and implement the appropriate investment journey.
  3. Shape and implement a sustainable investment policy.
    Our dedicated team can help you to form a sustainable investment policy and we rigorously oversee portfolios to ensure managers are sticking to their sustainability claims, and to protect clients from reputational damage.

Our achievements

We're delighted to have won four awards at the 2022 Professional Pensions Awards.

Our latest insights about fiduciary management

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    Get in touch to learn more about our fiduciary management solutions.