The pensions industry’s first dedicated professional corporate sole trustee firm, HS Sole Trustees, has been formed by Ray Martin, Kevin O’Boyle and Adrian Furnell.
The new company will aim to strengthen the relationship between schemes and sponsoring employers by providing access to sole trustees who can move at the pace needed to suit the best interests of both the sponsor and members alike.
It added that it intends to support UK companies on every aspect of achieving their scheme’s endgame, working with the existing administrator, actuary, investment consultants and legal advisers to ease the burden of governance, compliance and reporting requirements and, where appropriate, undertaking reviews of service providers.
Martin has acted as an independent trustee to high-profile pension plans across the public and private sector for more than 25 years, while his four-decade career in corporate pensions management has seen him work for companies such as AstraZeneca, Deutschepost DHL, Diageo and Natwest.
O’Boyle has served as head of global pensions & benefits at BT for 13 years and has held in-house roles running the pension schemes of firms such as RSA, GSK and GEC Marconi over the course of 40 years, while Furnell is a pensions manager and accredited professional trustee.
Other members of the team launching the new company include Peter Jones, who has spent 30 years providing pensions administration and secretarial services to defined benefit and defined contribution schemes and Steve Goddard, who co-founded pensions consultancy Goddard Perry and is a director at pensions campaigning group Pension Playpen.
Martin said: “The trustee role has never been more complex. Coupled with increased pressure on sponsors and scrutiny from the regulator, it is harder than ever to recruit appropriate member – and even employer – nominated trustees, so we think the traditional trusteeship model is not always fit for purpose.”
He explained that the trio had seen “real opportunity for a specialist firm who could do things differently and expeditiously”, as some companies with burdensome and vulnerable schemes needed the ability to act quickly and effectively but this was “not always possible when you have a trustee board with lay members that you need to keep trained and knowledgeable”.
He continued: “A growing number of schemes have been moving to a sole trusteeship model in recent years but, with HS Sole Trustees, our aim is to offer the sponsor dedicated and accredited professionals who understand the business, can strengthen the sponsor-scheme relationships, and ultimately know what it takes to deliver good outcomes for all parties.
“And since sole trusteeship is all we do, our team will be independent and completely un-conflicted.”
O’Boyle said: “Having had lengthy careers working with corporates on both sides of the table, Ray and I know first-hand the challenges of balancing different priorities and interests – and how frustrating it can be when decisions take longer than necessary to be pushed through.
“I am so excited to play my part in improving the current way of doing things and helping more firms secure the benefits for their pension scheme members in the quickest and most effective way possible.”
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