Pension funds and their advisers
Pension Funds and their Advisers is an annual directory published in the UK by Waterlow Legal & Regulatory Ltd, a Wilmington Group PLC company, under the trade name AP Information Services.
The main section of Pension Funds and their Advisers contains an alphabetical list of 2,700 corporate and institutional UK pension funds. Details listed under each pension fund include company or pension fund name, company address, senior contacts responsible for the fund, names of pension fund advisers, breakdowns of pension scheme membership, financial information for the scheme and summary of pension fund investments.
The second part of Pension Funds and their Advisers holds 1,750 entries related to companies who supply services and advice to pension funds within the UK. These 1,750 entries are spread across 25 sub-sections encompassing a broad range of pensions related services. Each company listed in this section is categorised by their main business activity.
UK Advisers to pension funds are listed as:
Accountants & Auditors |
Actuaries, Pension Fund Consultants & Investment Advisers |
Associations, Government Depts. & Professional Bodies |
Bulk Annuity Buyout Providers & Alternatives |
Class Action Law |
Computer & Internet Services |
Employee Benefits Providers |
Employee Communications & P.R. |
Global Custody & Trusteeship |
Hedge Fund Managers |
Insurance Companies |
Investment Banking Services |
Investment Managers |
Investment Research |
Legal Advisers |
Pension Administrators |
Pension Trustees |
Performance Measurement |
Publications & Sources of Information |
Real Estate Advisers |
Recruitment Consultants |
Stakeholder Services |
Tracing Companies |
Training Providers |
Transition Management |
The origins and history of pension funds and their advisers
In 1976 Alan Philipp was working as a financial analyst at Xerox when he attended a friend's dinner party where someone mentioned he was intending to publish a directory of pension funds with a business partner. The business partner in question was Robin Wills, a property developer, who having realised that increasing pension funds were starting to invest in various developments felt that a directory of pension funds would be a good idea.
Having studied for an MBA at INSEAD in Paris, Alan Philipp had already been publishing an address book for INSEAD alumni for several years as a hobby. Upon hearing that Robin Wills and his partner had been struggling to gather enough information to complete the directory, he offered to get involved.
On 1st May 1977 Alan Philipp, having left his job at Xerox, started working full time as a publisher beginning his research for pension fund information using questionnaires sent to contact lists from a company doing investment research for pension funds and from the research manager at a major firm of pension fund consultants.
The initial concept and the name of the book were developed fairly quickly and it was recognised that the relationships between a pension fund and its advisers was a vital one, balancing the two main sections of the book. The first EDition of Pension Funds and their Advisers was finally published in 1978 by AP Information Services Ltd.
The cover of first the edition was navy blue with gold embossed lettering. Every subsequent edition has been in an identical style leading to the book becoming well-known as "the blue book" among UK pension fund managers and advisers.
Over the years the data contained in Pension Funds and their Advisers has been shaped by the actual structure of pension funds. In 1978 many companies had two or three different funds, which tended effectively to be "blue collar" and "white collar", or more often called Works Scheme and Staff Scheme, as well as sometimes a Senior executive Scheme. Today as corporate pension scheme provision continues to change the book shows that the majority of older Final Salary Pension Funds have now been closed to new members and companies are increasingly offering Defined Contribution Pension Schemes of one form or another.
The first edition was in some ways the most successful in that 1400 copies were sold. However, even at an initial price of £12.50 it soon became clear that many pension fund managers would not, and often could not spend this amount on a directory.
The advisers however continued to be continuous customers, and those who advertised in the book wanted to be sure that their message was seen by their clients, the Pension Funds. After two editions the subscription policy was changed, and AP Information services started to distribute free copies to all major pension funds.
By the mid-1980s customers began to want information in other forms. Most often this was as a set of labels so they could write to pension funds. This developed into a system where information was supplied via a series of floppy disks.
In 1999 a CD-ROM version of the print directory was launched followed in 2004 by an online resource www.pensionfundsonline.co.uk 1
In February 2008 Alan Philipp, after more than 30 years association with Pension Funds and their Advisers, sold AP Information Services Ltd to Waterlow Legal & Regulatory Ltd, a Wilmington Group PLC company.
Waterlow Legal & Regulatory Ltd continue to publish both annual print and website versions of Pension Funds & their Advisers and its sister title International Pension Funds and their Advisers.
An international dimension
From 1980 AP Information Services found that there was a demand for pension fund information outside of the UK. However at this time only the Netherlands and USA had a pension structure anywhere similar to that in the UK. Nevertheless enough information could be gathered to publish information on Dutch and US funds within Pension Funds and their Advisers.
By 1999 with demand increasing it was time to extract the international information from Pension Funds and their Advisers and put it into a new publication International Pension Funds and their Advisers. Under a joint venture between AP Information Services and Investment & Pensions Europe (IPE magazine) the first edition of International Pension Funds and their Advisers, in a distinctive red, was published in 2000.
Criteria for entry
For most of the major pension funds, listed in Pension Funds and their Advisers each year, the financial figures are based on the latest available annual accounts.
Certain figures relate to the total of several funds within a company group, although in most cases however, where a sponsor company such as the Coal Pension Trustees administer more than one fund, then each fund is listed separately.
Power generating companies participating in the Electricity Pensions Services scheme are ranked according to their respective investment values. Most of this is also included within the Electricity Pension Services figure.
Full names of contacts for each company fund are found in the pension fund section of the book.
There are a large number of firms in the UK acting as advisers to pension funds. All those listed in Pension Funds and their Advisers all have specific expertise in this field.