UK - Schroder Investment Management has appointed Michael MacDonald-Smith as head of its UK defined contribution business in a bid to concentrate on this increasingly popular pension arrangement.

“UK companies in increasing numbers are now offering DC schemes to their employees,” it said. “Schroders believes its fund proposition of multi-asset, ‘new balanced’ and specialist funds are suited to providing DC schemes with good investment solutions for their members.”

MacDonald-Smith, who used to be head of DC at Barclays Global Investors, started on March 1. He reports to Miles O’Connor, head of UK institutional business.

“The DC market is an area we want to be active in,” O’Connor said. “Defined contribution schemes, just like defined benefit, want good investment solutions.”

A BGI spokesman said MacDonald-Smith left the company in 2004 and was not directly replaced.

Schroders manages £474m in DC assets.