Big Schemes £1bn+ Survey 2015

Many pension innovations stem from big schemes and work their way through to smaller schemes as the strategies become more refined and accessible.

Our third annual survey of 170 private sector defined benefit (DB) schemes in the UK with assets of over £1bn focuses on scheme type, asset allocation, investment performance, deficit contributions, and adviser fees.

Some of the highlights from below include:

• 57% of final salary schemes in our survey are closed to new members and a further 24% are also closed to future accrual, leaving just 19% open to new members
• 75% of schemes have a deficit on their company accounting basis, unchanged from last year
• the average annual employer deficit contribution was £94m, but ranged from £7m to £400m
• the average 3-year investment return was about 8.5% per year (for end dates ranging between March 2013 and March 2014), and the 5-year return was about 9.5% per year. These returns were significantly larger than the 1-year return which was around 5.5%
• the average PPF levy paid was £3.2m
• the average annual investment management fee was around 0.2% of assets, which is unchanged from last year