What is the current asset allocation within the Cushon Sustainable Investment Strategy and why is this different to the fund factsheet?

Until 7 years before your Target Age, your pension pot is invested in a well diversified mix of investments, including global equities, global bonds, and private market investments. They are chosen to provide long-term growth potential, which is why we call this the ‘growth phase’.

During its growth phase, {{ourName}}'s Sustainable Investment Strategy has an overall target investment allocation into the following kinds of asset:

• Global Equities: 75%
• Corporate Bonds: 10%
• Private Markets: 15%

To achieve this, we use 3 investment funds, which you can see in the {{ourName}} app. While the investment allocations will vary from time to time they are broadly as follows:

• {{ourName}} Global Equity Fund: 15%
• {{ourName}} Global Bonds Fund: 10%
• {{ourName}} Multi Asset Growth Fund: 75%

All three {{ourName}} funds are being used today. However, the assets that they currently hold are different to the overall target investment allocation for the {{ourName}} Sustainable Investment Strategy because we are phasing in new investments.

The difference today is "under the bonnet" of our {{ourName}} Multi Asset Growth Fund. This fund will hold our Private Markets assets, together with other assets that it already holds today, like additional Global Equities (hence it's known as a "multi-asset" fund).

In terms of the timeline to reach our target investment allocation, we expect our Private Markets allocation to begin increasing by the end of Q1/start of Q2 2023 and to reach its target allocation by the end of 2023.

Because we need to phase these investments in, the {{ourName}} Multi Asset Growth Fund is currently invested in a greater volume of Global Equities and there will be a transition from one mix to another.

As a pension provider, our objective is to provide a long-term return for pension savers and to help smooth out returns over time by choosing investments that have different fundamental qualities. For example, a share in a technology company will behave differently to an investment in social housing.

Additionally, we are responsible for finding ways to diversify our customers' investments across different types of assets, and we do this as and when these opportunities become available. The nature of investment is that these opportunities arise at different times and Private Market investments are one of these new opportunities.

However, when a new opportunity arises, it isn't really possible to make an immediate investment on a large scale in one go - we need to find the best opportunities that present the best value to our customers. This is why we typically phase such changes in over time when the right opportunities have been sourced and we've completed our due diligence on them with our investment partners.

To give you a feel of the work taking place behind the scenes at {{ourName}} (and which relates directly to all your questions), here's a recent article from the Financial Times about what we're doing in the pension industry to unlock investment opportunities in sustainable forestry, which is one example of a Private Market asset.

Please note: this was correct as of February 2023.

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