Here we grow again – Cushon Acquires Creative

Ever since we launched the Cushon Master Trust in January 2021 we have led the way with our innovative approach to supporting our members, demonstrated through our consumer grade app, our fully integrated wider workplace savings and CushonMe nudging capability, our Net Zero* investment proposition and most recently, the largest allocation to private markets investments of any UK master trust.

Statistics at Jan 2022

This is our third master trust acquisition in two years which is in line with regulatory goals to drive further consolidation in the market. The deal will bring Cushon’s total assets under management (including ISA savings) to over £1.7 billion with annual inflows of circa £300 million. This milestone is another important step forward as we continue to lead a tech revolution in the pensions and workplace savings market.

The right fit

Creative is a great fit for Cushon. A fantastically run master trust with great clients supported by a brilliant team. The people, culture and expertise are a perfect complement to us and bring with them a deep technical capability and innovative approaches to serving clients and members.

Together we look forward to continuing to welcome new clients and we also continue to have an eye on further acquisitions as part of our growth strategy, consistent with our key objectives of making pensions, savings and investments accessible to all and delivering better outcomes for our members.

Continuing to invest in our proposition

Our recent funding round, fully subscribed by existing shareholders, provides us with significant additional growth capital to enable us to further scale our operational capability and continue to invest in the two pillars that underpin our ambitions - our people and our technology - delivering features that continue to redefine workplace pensions.

People - our people are our biggest asset, and we take pride investing in a team that mixes pensions and investment experience along with consumer technology expertise. We will continue to grow our team as we scale up and invest in the skills and professional development of our people.

Technology - as a fintech, we strongly believe that delivering a market leading tech capability is not something you can outsource to a third party, ultimately at the mercy of their capacity for innovation and operational constraints. We are innovators. We are in control of our own capability providing us with the flexibility and the freedom to build and develop market-defining capability for the benefit of our members.

Moving forward

Our teams are already preparing the groundwork to bring Creative into the Cushon family, bringing to bear the multitude of benefits this additional scale, skills and capabilities bring to both of our memberships. In parallel with this, we’re investing further in our member support capability, adding even greater scale to our customer touchpoints to deliver for our blue-chip clients.

Upon completion, an Integration Committee, represented by both parties, will begin the work to share best practice and standardise governance processes, to ensure that members’ best interests continue to be served.

Our objective is to integrate seamlessly, and we look forward to providing all our members with an even better experience, building on our market leading ~85% member engagement rate.

As an organisation, Cushon is committed to reinvigorating the UK pensions market and as we are independent of a parent company focused on asset management or technology platform sales, we can maintain our singular focus on delivering fantastic outcomes for our members. 2022 has started with a big bang and we look forward to delivering on our commitments and redefining customer expectations from their pension provider.

*Cushon's Net Zero Now Pension (with carbon offsets) has reached capacity. Our default fund, with reduced carbon, remains.

Article by

NatWest Cushon