Marsh McLennan's Mercer completes the acquisition of Cardano

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Investment management

If you’re here, you’re probably interested in Cardano’s approach to investing and investment management. As you know, investing is a means to an end. It’s one way to grow assets until they are sufficient to meet your objectives: paying your beneficiaries, for example.

Clear and forward-looking approach to investing

Traditionally, boards have made some strategic investment decisions (e.g. asset allocation) and delegated others to fund managers (e.g. stock selection). The strategic investment decisions tend to be more impactful on financial outcomes, adding to the pressure on board members and their advisors, few of whom are experienced investors themselves.

Trade-off between outcome and cost

Investment returns (even if they are moderate) compounded over time can lead to great outcomes for investors. But expected investment returns come with ‘costs’: primarily market risk and illiquidity risk. They also come with actual costs: fees and transaction costs.

 

These trade-offs need continuous reassessment given that:

  • market conditions change, sometimes quickly;
  • boards’ priorities change. For example, they may want to progressively de-risk to cheaper, more liquid portfolios.

As an investment manager acting with our clients’ objectives in mind, it’s our job to balance these trade-offs and help clients make these assessments.

A direct investor with our own approach

We’re a multi-asset investment manager, providing essential services to pension funds and other savers. We’re a direct investor with in-house investment capabilities. In other words, we’re not a fund that exclusively selects third-party fund managers. That means we’ve designed our own approach to investing, which involves:

  • clearly documented investment beliefs;
  • an investment philosophy that leads to economically balanced portfolios;
  • an investment process that’s robust and repeatable, but subject to continuous improvement;
  • an unusually broad toolkit of asset classes, strategies and instruments;
  • an emphasis on sustainable investing across our clients’ portfolios (both growth and LDI).

 

Find out more about LDI at Cardano
Marino Valensise, Group CIO Cardano

As a pension-focused organisation, we aim to help trustees secure safer outcomes for their members. Our expert teams focus on delivering economically balanced portfolios for our clients as we navigate the complex investment landscape.

Marino Valensise, Group CIO of Cardano