Corporate pensions - Investment Options
Three distinct offers
We’ve segmented our corporate pensions investments into three distinct offers, designed to meet very different and specific needs.
By having a segmented investment offer we ensure that:
- Members can make personal choices with ease and confidence
- Scheme advisers have the choice and flexibility they need to create customised or bespoke solutions for specific employers.
Find out more about:
Core Offer
Customised Offer
Bespoke Offer
Core offer
Ideal for members who aren’t receiving individual advice or don’t want to be ‘hands on’.
There’s a choice of three Pension Investment Approaches reflecting different attitudes to risk and reward.
When investing each member’s pension we take into account both their:
- Chosen approach, and
- Length of time to retirement.
As a result, the investment choices made when joining the scheme should remain valid right through to retirement. To make sure this happens, we use a sophisticated asset allocation model developed in partnership with Barrie and Hibbert, a UK financial risk consultancy.
The model automatically ensures for every member, that:
- Appropriate investments for the chosen approach are used in the right proportions, at the right times and are continually rebalanced on a regular basis
- Investment risk gradually reduces in the last 15 years before the selected pension date - investments are moved automatically into progressively less volatile funds in the approach to retirement.
Customised offer
Scheme advisers can use our core asset allocation model with their own choice of underlying funds.
Some schemes may opt to use our core asset allocation model with different underlying pension funds, using approved alternatives from our range.
Members will be offered Adventurous, Balanced or Cautious Pension Investment Approaches, and will be able to use our online investment decision tool to help them choose.
Bespoke offer
Scheme with sophisticated requirements can create bespoke portfolios from our comprehensive range of over 100 funds, including:
1. Scottish Widows Core Internally Managed Pension Funds
Established in 2000, Scottish Widows Investment Partnership (SWIP) manages our range of core Pension funds. With over £145.39 billion (as at 31 March 2011) under management, SWIP is one of Europe’s largest asset management companies and part of Lloyds Banking Group.*
SWIP compile their investment knowledge through a combination of methods including:
- Expert global research of individual stocks across all the world wide markets.
- Their sophisticated knowledge portal, providing stock pickers and sector managers with invaluable real time global information.
* Source: SWIP, March 2011.
2. Scottish Widows Externally Managed Pension Funds
Covering a wide range of asset classes, geographical locations, sectors and management styles, our Externally Managed Funds provide all the basic building blocks to create bespoke investment portfolios.
Scottish Widows may alter its investment range and adjust the terms and conditions that apply to its Pension Investment Approaches and pension funds.
