UK – Actuarial firm Hymans Robertson has recruited three people for its investment practice at its Glasgow office and says further hires are likely in the next few months.

Hymans is the leading provider of actuarial services to UK local government pension schemes. Watson Wyatt recently announced that it is withdrawing from that market.

The investment practice side of the business is distinct from the local authority side, a spokeswoman said. If any of Watson Wyatt’s former local authority clients re-tendered for actuarial services then “hopefully we would tender for it”.

Hymans said in a statement that it has hired John Dickson, an actuary from Abbey National and Alastair Haddow from Murray Johnstone. It also hired Stephen Birch, a former analyst at Reuters and Datamonitor.

George Henshilwood, a partner at the firm, said the “increasing shift to specialisation is requiring more in-depth research”. He added: “Further recruitment is likely over the next few months.” The spokeswoman said the forthcoming hires would be in the investment practice.