One of our clients, a financial services company, had made great strides in improving their funding position by 2019, significantly ahead of schedule. Building on that success, they agreed that a full buy-out of the Scheme would be a great long-term target. The Trustees set a target date of 2027 for this outcome, on a view that the Scheme would take no more risk than necessary to allow it to close the funding gap.

A key element of our strategic advice to the Trustees to help them meet their objectives was the introduction of a new buy-and-hold credit mandate. This case study sets out the responsible investment issues we considered with the Trustees in the development of this mandate and how we ultimately embedded RI issues into the solution they adopted.