Institutional investors have rarely faced such challenges. Today’s testing market environment is creating headwinds for achieving your investment goals. Meanwhile, sustainable investing is evolving and regulations are changing. There’s a greater need than ever for specialist expertise and monitoring.

Portfolio structures that have worked well for the past two decades are being tested. Institutions need to stress-test their strategies, addressing challenges in the following areas.

• Understanding market trends and how they might affect your ability to achieve your investment objectives. Additionally, finding medium-term market opportunities or ways to reduce risk.
• Monitoring funding levels and asset-liability management projections. Making any changes needed to achieve them.
• For defined benefit pension schemes, finding the best way to manage, reduce or remove risk as they move along the path to the end of their journeys.
• Selecting highly rated asset managers. Having sufficient research to generate manager outperformance from selecting quality active managers.
• Developing and implementing sustainable investment policies. Framing policies that will adapt to changes in sustainable investment as it evolves. Researching quality investment managers.
• Finding ways to improve governance and reduce costs in operations. Taking an analytical approach can realise significant efficiencies in areas such as custody and securities lending, asset transitions and operations generally.

Beyond addressing these challenges, it’s important to monitor changes in your portfolios, as well as in regulation. Do you have highly rated portfolio analytics? Are you following the latest governance and regulatory updates?