Why Appoint Us?

Why appoint HS Trustees?

HS Trustees are an independent firm of experienced Professional Trustees. We can provide a Chair of Trustees, a Corporate Sole Trustee or a co-Trustee. We are happy to use our industry expertise to lead Schemes and to challenge advisors. However, we know were the boundaries lie between consulting and Trusteeship. Our main differentiators are as follows.

1. Pragmatic, proportionate and risk controlled for small schemes – for example,
   1. we are driving practical initiatives in the ESG space for pooled fund clients,
       
   2. one of our clients has a sponsor that some firms wouldn’t take on
       
   3. we are defining proportionate policies for sub £10mn schemes in the ESOG space
       
2. Truly independent professional trustees (APPT accredited). Not team based but able to leverage support within HS Trustees if required. You get a professional as your Trustee with many years of experience. Work is not delegated to junior staff. No Ancillary services.
    
3. Look to work in partnership with incumbent advisors. Not looking to replace them or lower their fees. This distinguishes us from some of those who are. High level of knowledge of sponsor needs and requirements and aim to work in partnership with sponsor meeting their needs whilst ensuring member benefits are delivered.

We also have specialisms in Investment, Governance, ESG and Buyin/ buyout. Experience of working with multinational clients. And our fees will be towards the lower end.

In addition, a Professional Trustee can provide the following benefits to a scheme.

• Whether an independent or Sole trustee role, we remove the need for, and difficulty of, finding both member-nominated trustees (MNT’s) and employer nominated trustees (ENT’s).
   
• Ever-growing complexity of pension issues places significant burdens on the time of lay trustees – there is a training and knowledge (TKU) requirement on all trustees, be they independent, member or employer nominated. As a specialist independent trustee company, we provide Accredited Professional Pension Trustees who must pass exams and meet continuous professional development standards.
   
• Traditional trustees may find it difficult to agree on matters, causing delays in the decision-making process. Whilst there are some extremely effective trustee boards, a professional independent like HS Trustees can ease internal tensions and help the decision-making process. This can in some cases reduce costs and take advantage of opportunities.
   
• Speeding up the decision-making process. For traditional trustees, the trustee meeting can be the only opportunity to make decisions. As a professional trustee company we will help to manage the scheme and assist the Board in making decisions outside of the normal meetings cycle. There is still the need for some formal meetings, but these become more of a strategic forum with the sponsor looking at the long-term strategy of the scheme. We embrace new technologies such as Pension Pal (app based) to speed up decisions.
   
• Removing conflicts of interests. Trustees who are employed by the sponsor, member-nominated or employer-nominated, have an inherent conflict where the individual may be a member of the scheme and making decisions which would affect their own benefit entitlement. Such trustees may also feel conflicted where the scheme is a defined benefit arrangement with a deficit and a negotiation with the sponsor on how it is to meet the deficit is required. An independent trustee or sole trustee will be completely independent from the sponsor so will not have these same conflicts.
   
• In some cases, the sole trustee option can free up time of existing lay trustees to concentrate on the sponsor's business.