SWITZERLAND – Swiss pension and employee benefit consulting firm Pendia Associates has formed an alliance with Frank Russell, now providing access to the multi-manager’s funds.
Pendia, which recently acquired the Swiss business of Buck Heissmann, is one of the largest service providers to Swiss pension funds. It will offer its clients the full range of Russell’s multi-style, multi-manager solutions. Russell opened a Geneva office at the start of the year.
The responsibility for active asset manager selection and investment performance will be handled by a team at Russell.
Commenting on the alliance, said Mike McShee, senior partner at Pendia: “We have built a commanding position in the general area of pension consulting with a strong concentration in the area of allocation strategy development. We believe that while sound strategy development is imperative for an institution, it is equally important to find the means of excellence in implementing the strategy.”
“At Pendia, we do not have a team of analysts to handle in-depth manager research on a continuous basis, and so we have been limited in our capacity to offer implementation services to our clients.”
Explaining the decision to choose partner with Frank Russell, McShee said: “The Russell manager research team is certainly the largest in the world, and has the widest global reach. Global reach is imperative as allocation strategy and the universe of possible managers is distributed all over the world.”
“Going Forward, Pendia is looking to offer a fully outsourced solution to Swiss pension fund clients which will include administration, accounting, actuarial services and member communications, coupled with Russell’s investment solutions."
Frank Russell has been steadily increasing its presence in Europe, having added several new European distribution partners, and winning mandates in the Netherlands and the UK. The investment services firm now manages over 67 billion dollars in assets, of which approximately 16 billion dollars is managed from Europe.
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