Trustee Investments
Professor Paul Myners - see here - highlighted the need for trustees to ensure that they are appropriately and professionally advised when making investment decisions that will affect the membership of defined benefit schemes. He wrote that "Decisions should be taken only by persons or organisations with the right skills, information and resources necessary to take them effectively."
Unless you are an investment expert, it is essential that you take professional advice when deciding on scheme investments. And decisions are becoming harder all the time as it becomes more difficult to compare different funds. As many of our clients are either settlors, trustees or beneficiaries of trusts we are pleased to advise you on their roles and responsibilities.
The key benefit for you as a trustee is that you are sub-contracting the investment monitoring of your portfolio to a firm committed to review the fund management industry and seek out best potential, by monitoring, for example, fund manager movements - when a manager changes company he often takes a successful team with him. For any trustee who is concerned about fulfilling their investment responsibilities in the light of the Myners report, this may prove an invaluable solution.
There are two significant documents that all trustees should be aware of (see the below links) when undertaking their duties as trustees. The first of these is the Trustees Act 2000 and the second is the Myners Review of Institutional Investment in the UK (2001).
For more information about how we can help Trustees comply please click here.
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