Overview of Governance in DC context – Gemma Burrows
GEMMA BURROWS: Thank you. Hi, everyone. It's great to be here. So I'm going to spend the next few minutes talking to you about governance in the global DC context. And let's first think about what governance actually means.
Well, a quick Google search will show that it refers to the framework and processes that ensure effective management and accountability within an organization, which I think is a fairly accurate reflection of what we mean by governance. But I want to just expand on that a little bit over the next few minutes, because we know from surveys that retirement outcomes are a key focus for sponsors, but there's not always the financial scope to improve funding through higher contributions. So I want to also think about how governance done well can help to improve retirement outcomes and potentially save the sponsor cost.
And there's a reason why governance is important when it comes to DC. There's now a heavy reliance on it globally in terms of being the primary source of income in retirement. So, for example, in the US and Australia, DC is really the only form of retirement provision.
And in other countries, for example, the UK, we're now finding that defined benefit is giving way to more defined contribution. And so certainly, most of tomorrow's retirees will be relying on DC to provide their retirement income. So it's important that DC works well, that it provides good retirement outcomes, and that it gives the financial security needed in retirement. And Beth is going to explore retirement adequacy a little bit more in her section because this is something that we see coming sharply into focus across the globe.
Governance should also be seen as a risk management framework. It shouldn't just be a nice to have. It helps sponsors to protect themselves and protect their employees and manage the risks that are present in the DC world.
And we also need to be mindful of the regulatory landscape. There are different regulatory bodies and legal governance requirements in different jurisdictions. And so thinking about how to navigate these will help to ensure that you have a robust governance framework.
So let's move on and think about the risks you need to consider. So the single biggest factor when it comes to DC is market volatility. Behind the amount that's paid in, investment returns is the biggest driver in determining what you get out. And if what you get out isn't enough, then as an employer, you're faced with an aging workforce that can't afford to retire, which is going to lead to workforce planning issues and increasing benefit costs with the aging population.
ESG, so environmental, social, and governance considerations, also need to be thought about. Now, there's an increasing desire for members of DC to want to know where their money is being invested and that it's being invested responsibly in line with their ethical or religious beliefs. And it's also an opportunity to engage members, particularly perhaps the younger ones.
Lars is going to talk a little bit more about engagement, which is a big challenge when we talk about DC. And Ben is going to be talking about ESG in the context of investments in a bit more depth. But if ESG isn't considered, this can act as a barrier. And we see an ethnicity pension gap, and this is only going to get worse if we don't take things into consideration.
And then legal recourse. So the ultimate risk of not doing governance is reputational and/or financial damage to the employer. And I just want to talk about a recent case study to help bring this to life. So a company came to us. They hadn't been doing any meaningful governance across their DC provision, and they recognized that this was presenting a risk for them.
The company had three different entities, and they offered three different DC plans. They employed just over 1,000 employees, and contributions were just over 15 million pounds per year. So around 18 million euros or just under $20 million.
We started by doing a diagnostic of what they had, which involved collecting some high-level data and plan information. And then we interrogated this. And what we discovered from that process was that the charges being paid were higher than they should have been, and they varied across each plan. So some employees were paying higher fees than others.
We also discovered that plans were invested in different default investment strategies. So different outcomes were being experienced by members, and there were some non-compliant processes that could have led to financial penalties and name and shame, if not addressed. But perhaps most importantly, one of the plan's investments had been tracking well under benchmark on a 1, 3, and 5-year performance period.
Now, had they not taken the step of looking at that DC provision, they wouldn't have been aware of these issues. And they wouldn't have been able to address them and tackle them. And they could have faced complaints and even litigation. So this really was a valuable exercise for them. They're now embarking on a project, a governance project, to address each of these issues identified and to put in place a framework to prevent this from happening in the future.
So hopefully this case study has demonstrated that good governance brings a multitude of benefits and helps to improve adequacy. The retirement provision that you offer is part of your total reward package, and having a well-run and good quality plan helps to support attraction and retention. And thinking about how your employees are engaging with their DC provision not only helps them to get the most out of it, but also supports better engagement and financial resilience across your workforce. Lars will think about some practical steps in the next segment around how to encourage this engagement and address this challenge when it comes to DC.
But governance also improves retirement adequacy. It doesn't matter how much you're paying in if your investments are underperforming or if your charges are higher than they should be. You're not going to be getting the good outcome that you and your employees deserve, and that's going to be devastating for the retirees of the future.
So, without a doubt, there's an increased focus on governance. And this slide shows the current regulatory landscape and the bodies, the regulatory bodies that exist in different jurisdictions. But as well as the increased focus on governance, there's an increased likelihood of litigation. And in many cases, the cost of rectifying issues, if they're left unidentified, is higher than the cost of having a robust framework in the first place.
This risk also means that many of the regulators are forcing consolidation. So they're looking to root out smaller schemes or schemes that can't demonstrate value. We know there are complexities and local nuances. So, what does good governance look like?
Well, first and foremost, it's about knowing what you've got and where. And it's about identifying where that responsibility sits and having an owner for that responsibility. And I can give an example of a company that I worked with in the UK that were fined a three-figure sum because it wasn't clear who owned a particular responsibility in relation to a legal requirement.
And then it's about setting out clear terms of reference. So what's in scope? What's out of scope? What are you considering? And what perhaps is not going to be part of that remit?
We'll be holding deep-dive sessions on a regional basis, and these will look in more detail at the governance frameworks that you can put in place in certain territories. So if you've not signed up for these, please do so. But we're nearly at the top of our 10 minutes now, so let's just finish off with a conclusion.
So governance of DC, I hope you agree, is crucial for protecting both individuals and sponsors. Done well, governance improves financial resilience. It improves retirement adequacy. And it supports your organization in attraction and retention of talent. It's also a means of improving the value of this important employee benefit and in a cost effective way.
So having gone through and taken the time to talk about governance, I think, if there is one key action that I can give you to take away from this session, it's to ask the question, what are we doing to govern our DC plans? And I think that will be the first step in terms of working towards addressing what is a very real issue. Thank you.
Member Engagement overview – Lars Christensen
LARS CHRISTENSEN: Thank you. I have the honor of giving some input in relation to member engagement. My expertise in this area is based on many years of experience by being responsible for a country where DC schemes has been the primary savings for employees. For over 30 years, I have worked with pension and benefit schemes. Thus, there is a lot of learning that can be passed on as input to others with full knowledge and respect for the fact that many countries are at different level of maturity.
In the past, when selecting the best pension provider for DC schemes, the main focus has used to be on administration and investment performance. However, we have seen a change over recent times where more and more companies are considering the employee and member engagement as a key criteria. Engaging members is not easy and has involved and will continue to do so in the future.
Other key takeaways from the global survey is flexible arrangement and the work environment have become increasingly important. Pay security and flexibility are the top priorities for employees. Employers increasingly want to signal their employee value proposition as a part of the company values.
But how do we engage members in the best way to secure value for money for both employers and the employees? Before continuing, I think it is important to consider the types of people you have in your business. As by understanding them and their personas, you can tailor your messaging and truly engage with your employees.
Employees are different in relation to types, but also in relation to age and gender. The employees are in different phases of life and, therefore, also have different interests and priorities based on this. Young members don't necessarily have the same interest as older members, and members having a family don't necessarily have the same interest as people close to retirement or retirees, for that matter.
The same goes for different typologies such as vulnerable employees and informed employees. As a company, you need to address all types and also be able to make sure the members take proactive decisions when their needs change. This to make sure that the company offered benefits, whether it's products or advice-- that's guidance-- is utilized as best as possible.
It is fine and necessary to have default solutions such as benefits and investments in order to ensure the best possible solution for employees. But in order to ensure best value for money, we, as employers, must, to a greater extent, ensure life-stage relevant benefits and services and ensure the flexibility that is desired. This can be done in many ways, both through the use of technology, AI, and through targeted efforts towards the employees, but perhaps also with new policies in the best interest of the employees so that they have to proactively decide on the compulsion of their schemes.
Our view is that holistic advice on the employee's entire finances, financial well-being, and flexibility will be a huge focus point in the future. And a target for employer could be that every member/employee ongoing throughout life is conscious of know your number, hit your number in regards of required savings for retirement seen from a holistic perspective.
On this last page, we have really just summarized some of our recommendations as well as in the larger box, supplemented with a completely new, and perhaps a little controversial, call to ensure the best possible use of benefits that companies make available for employees. As mentioned on the other slide, we think that branding is super important. Default solutions are good but do not have to be the best for everyone, according to typologies.
There is and will be an increasing need for holistic advice so that employees are totally embraced financially. Having live-stage relevant products and advice guidance and flexibility increase the value of benefits for the employees, again, according to typologies. AI must support nudging so that employees constantly adapt their solution to changing needs.
And then, the last and perhaps somewhat controversial point, perhaps employers should actually consider mandatory advice, either through technology or through personal guidance from an advisor, to ensure that employees set up their savings and benefits in the way that is best for them and their wishes. This best ensure value for money and perhaps it should be mandatory like other compliance conditions.
Measuring engagement is not easy, but important to secure best possible use of company benefits ongoing. So for that reason, it will be good to set up initiatives to measure this. You can look on how many people have registered on to the portal if you have one. You can look at how many people are paying additional contribution. You can see how many people take up counseling sessions or attend to pension workshops. Of course, you can also ask people about their views and satisfaction throughout surveys.
Whatever you do to measure member engagement, it is critical to secure value for money to do so. So initiatives as well as benefits and advice/guidance can be adjusted when needed. And again, if you, as an employer, make advice mandatory, perhaps you will secure member engagement from the beginning. Thank you.
Retirement adequacy overview – Beth Ashmore
BETH ASHMORE: Thank you. So we've heard about the importance of governance and member engagement with plans. And both Gemma and Lars shared how doing those well can support retirement outcomes. Now I'm going to turn to a topic near and dear to my heart, which is how we can continue to design DC plans to support retirement adequacy as employees prepare for and transition into retirement.
In order to effectively do that in a DC world, we need to acknowledge several of the environmental and social factors which are influencing how employees might be saving and preparing to retire today. In many countries, we've seen the benefits of increasing life expectancy, which means employees need to be prepared financially for potentially more years in retirement. And yet there is uncertainty. And so they need flexibility.
This is all taking place when many employees are challenged in balancing their day-to-day living expenses versus saving for retirement, particularly in light of the recent inflation we've experienced. The concept of retirement in a DC world is blurring. It's less likely that one day you're working and the next you're not.
Instead, we see interest in a phased approach, which means changes in employees' expectations of working hours and roles. And lastly, we see variations in saving and engagement behavior amongst employers' workforces by gender, ethnicity play a role. Potentially, they've experienced gaps in employment from caregiving or health needs, which are going to all factor into their ability to save and prepare for retirement.
And with that as backdrop, you can see from the data on the bottom that employees' expectations around how long they anticipate to work is changing. It's certainly true in North America from the data, as you see here. But as you break down the other regions and focus on individual countries, those countries are all reporting an increase in the proportion of employees that are anticipating to work longer. And that may be in part, again, because of inflation and in part because employees are starting to recognize that there is more to be thinking about for retirement.
So what can we as employers do to ensure our plans are best positioned to help employees achieve an adequate retirement in a DC world? Let's first think about addressing this question from a savings perspective. And then I'll speak to the retirement transition and decumulation phase. So if we go on to the next page, you can see that the chart on the left-- that savings is definitely on the mind of employees. Three of four employees across the globe are concerned that they are not saving sufficiently for retirement.
This number has generally increased over the past few years. But what I've also found interesting is that in many countries, employees are reporting that they are actually saving more. But the gap between what they believe they should save and what they are saving has also increased. That could be from a number of factors. The recent inflationary period, as I mentioned, probably has a large role to play. But I, again, also expect this to be a growing awareness by employees that they are ultimately responsible to be prepared for retirement.
Now, as sponsors, we are also managing limited budgets and resources. So employer contributions are not going to be what makes up that gap. So what can employers really do? First, let's make sure that you are aligned on the target retirement outcomes for your DC plan. So I'd ask how well structured is the design of your plan with social programs, with ideal employee savings to position employees for an adequate retirement.
What is that right target level of savings and the right balance between employee and employers in saving for that retirement? How does that-- it can be influenced with your plan design. From an affordability perspective, is your plan ultimately affordable for employees to be able to participate effectively?
If your contributions are a match of employee contributions, is that employee contribution level at a spot where your employees really are able to effectively participate within your plan? The use of auto enrollment and escalation has been a helpful tool that has been increasing in prevalence around the world. There are certainly nuances of how those get implemented, depending on the specific country and regulations.
So it's important to think about how you're applying those policies in the countries of which you operate. Consider what messaging your plan design might be sending in terms of the targeted employee level of contributions and whether employees need to be aware of the need for supplemental savings in addition to the retirement plan design that you have. There may be opportunities for employees to take advantage of catch-up options on savings, particularly as they get closer to retirement.
And then, in response to the challenging pressure that employees feel to try to balance their day-to-day savings with retirement preparation, think about how you can introduce flexibility or choice into the design of your plan to allow employees to effectively balance their day-to-day expenses and savings for retirement. Here in North America, that has certainly been a really interesting area of focus. We've had a number of regulatory opportunities where employers can now recognize whether an employee is paying down student debt or wants to build up an emergency savings account within their defined contribution plan as a way of trying to address that flexibility and that need.
In addition to the design of your plan, it's also really important to consider the metrics that you're using to monitor and make decisions as it relates to your retirement program. I've included a chart here on the right from WTW's FiTage, which is geared towards helping employers understand what portion of their workforce is well positioned from a retirement preparation perspective versus those that might be off track.
These analytics can be helpful to further investigate different segments of your workforce, their savings behavior, and develop insights into their broader financial well-being, which can allow you to be able to develop more targeted communication, engagement, or supplemental solutions to support. We find that assessing behaviors such as plan loans or lack of direct banking can be useful indicators that plan participants may be having broader day-to-day financial resilience challenges that may be crowding out their opportunity to save.
This is also where examining segments-- again, potentially by gender or job roles, functions-- can really inform your design and your engagement strategies. And finally, I'll touch on a question related to the regulatory perspective on outcomes. And this ties to Gemma's governance themes earlier.
While many of the regulatory emphasis has been and will continue to be focused on the solutions being developed-- auto enrollment, investments, decumulation-- some regulators and pension advocates, such as the pension advisory group in Canada or the UK regulator, has been calling for plan sponsors and governance committees to also focus on whether their DC plans have acceptable outcomes as they become a more sizable portion of retirement savings.
Thus, this is something we advise sponsors to monitor from a regulatory perspective but also to consider how to build this more outcome-based view into your day-to-day decision making around your DC plans. So with that on savings, let's now turn to the other big question. How are employees prepared to understand what they need to consider as they transition to retirement? And if we thought there was a lot to consider in the accumulation stages, it's even more complicated and individualized to figure out how to live well in retirement.
Some of the factors that employees may be thinking about is how to consider the change in living costs that they're going to need between when they're working or in retirement, whether they may have different expectations of spending during retirement. Perhaps they want to travel more in their early years versus later in life. Depending on the country, there's going to be differences in the expectations of how much they need for health care.
There are differences in terms of withdrawal options, required distributions, and solutions that may vary by country. And employees may be actually seeing, based on their varying employers, if they haven't consolidated all of their assets. And then there, again, remains this question about how to plan for longevity and potential bequests. So this is where, when you look at the employee data, when we asked what are you most interested in and important for you to learn about, obviously, timing of retirement is ranking across the globe very high.
But these questions around how to plan for spending and withdrawals in retirement is right neck and neck. This is certainly the case in North America, Australia, and Europe-- very focused on retirement timing and that spending, how to take their money. In Asia-Pacific, most employees are still focused on the questions around how much to save because they're still in that wealth generation phase.
So with that as backdrop, again, let's look at what employers can actually aim to do. A few ideas that I've put on the next slide-- so first, as Lars mentioned, start by examining the education, planning, and financial counseling resources that you can provide to members. On the topic of transition to retirement, it is too late to be doing that six months before retirement.
We need to ensure that the level of education and engagement starts early. It will allow employees to be aware of their need to engage, maybe move off of that automatic default that Lars talked about, and get more comfortable with asking the questions that will help inform their options. Second, make sure you understand and are thoughtful about how your benefits and policies are set up to help aid employees during that transition.
Is there a straightforward hub or microsite where retiring employees can find access to their savings vendor, educational resources, information on social benefits, and in some countries-- like, for example, in the US-- supplementary medical coverage options? There is also the opportunities to help employees understand and consider some modeling of what their withdrawal or spending needs might need to be. And some of that may be provided by your savings vendors or other education financial counseling solutions.
Third, think about how your employment policies may address the trend of employees choosing to take a phased-retirement approach. How might this affect how you think about career paths, your information in transition and development opportunities, and how your benefit programs may need to adapt? Some employers have asked themselves specifically around whether they should have formal phased-retirement policies. Others simply want to be mindful of the activity from a skills transition and a budget perspective.
In a DC plan, make sure you've examined your point of view about the ability to-- whether members can continue to participate in their plan after leaving your organization. There's certainly a strong link to governance, as Gemma talked about. But it's an important philosophy to help employees effectively not feel the angst that they need to take a withdrawal right away.
And finally, and this is a really interesting area, given the products that are being developed today-- and Ben's going to share an example here in a few minutes. But consider how your DC plan may want to adopt decumulation strategies. What's the role of decumulation strategies, given your current benefits and the social programs in the countries of which you operate? We do still have some employees where they are still covered predominantly by a defined benefit plan today, but maybe our future generations of employees may not.
Second, think about how the decumulation phase can start to become a focus as you engage your employees as they start to near to retirement as well. Think about whether you want to take advantage of some of the more automatic solutions which are starting to be developed to allow for employees to start saving towards a decumulation solution. Or consider whether you really just want to take a hands-off approach for the time being as those products are being developed.
So with all of that, hopefully this has given you some ideas to think about how to help your employees prepare for an adequate retirement. Thank you.
Investment in DC schemes – Ben Leach
BEN LEACH: Thank you. Today, I'm going to cover three of the major investment themes that we are encountering our DC clients around the world needing our help with and the ones we think should likely be at the forefront of your mind as you engage with your own providers. Undoubtedly, each and every market is different, but these are three themes that resonate wherever folks are in the world when we're having conversations.
Firstly, I'm going to touch upon the increasing spotlight that is being placed on having better decumulation options available for members as post-retirement for the DC member population becomes more and more a reality for more and more savers. Secondly, the importance to both employers and members of how to ensure investment options consider what ESG means to them and indeed how to integrate those beliefs in having ESG options on their investment menus. Lastly, I'm going to touch upon two key innovations we see taking place across both public and private equity investing.
So, as Beth touched upon earlier, the post-retirement phase in a DC context remains a challenge. It's difficult for members to consider how much they should withdraw. From a member perspective, we must make this phase simpler and focus on asking questions around outcomes and lifestyle, not necessarily on what investment choices or asset classes they would prefer to invest in.
The key questions are not investment related ones, but what it is they want to do with their money, what they're trying to achieve, and what role their DC assets play within an overall retirement strategy. This slide reflects an example of how our UK DC master trust's LifeSight supports members through decumulation at this stage, using a range of tools, including LifeSight age, which, once a member is in retirement, estimates the age at which a member is expected to exhaust their pot based on current withdrawal rates. There are an increasing number of options for what they do with their money at this stage.
People will need to make decisions, and so they will need help and advice, as Lars has already talked about. Different markets, undoubtedly, go about implementing this in different ways. But what is common from an investment perspective is that while some members may purchase an annuity, more and more are deciding not to.
And so having a proper decumulation investment approach that maintains a diversified array across different asset classes depending on indeed, those outcomes that members are looking to achieve so that they can continue to earn a return and deliver income as they live for longer and look to rely upon these pots for a longer period.
Members are going to be, as I say, living longer. And so it is incumbent upon employers to be asking providers, be that their insurance companies, administrators, or investment consultants, how it is they can help, how they can help your employees with this stage of the journey in providing robust investment solutions that are outcomes focused.
So moving on to the second thing-- second theme I wish to cover-- ESG investing. This slide is taken from our global benefits survey that we ran earlier this year, assessing members preferences for the things that matter to them about their investments. As you can see on the top right-hand side in the peach color, the proportion of members that favor ethical preferences for their investment options has increased over the past five years, whilst those that avoid ESG entirely has decreased. Now, just 13% of people globally think ESG is not a consideration at all.
The rising demand for ESG investment options within DC plans is not, of course, universal. Various jurisdictions are introducing or tightening regulations requiring DC plans to consider ESG factors in their investment strategies, such as in Europe, where this trend is particularly strong. But in other markets, such as the US, this has become a highly debated and contentious issue.
One of the things we observed relating to ESG investing is that DC members or their trustees have been increasingly interested in aligning their retirement investments with their company values, pushing their employers to incorporate ESG-focused funds in default options as the majority of participants continue to invest via the default option. This allows companies to demonstrate alignment between their own corporate social responsibility policies, ESG policies with indeed the way that their employees are saving for their retirement through their investment portfolios.
Moving on to the third topic around innovation and firstly, touching upon public equities. One of the major trends we have seen in investing in listed equities in DC plans for the past number of years has been the increasing focus on costs. This has driven a lot of DC plans to invest solely in passive investments. However, the advent of SmartBeta or factor investing has been a trend which has grown over the last 10 years as a way of delivering an active type of approach, but a much lower cost than traditional active investing by adopting these more quantitative approaches.
The reality, though, is that using SmartBeta approaches to investing has delivered a mixed experience for members. Our research and experience in working with clients and investment managers around the world building these types of strategies over the past 10 years has taught us a lot about some of the challenges facing investors.
Over that time, we have worked to create better SmartBeta investment solutions for our clients, be that helping some large asset owners build bespoke strategies, designing ESG benchmarks, or more recently, by launching indices in conjunction with MSCI of our own, such as the WTW's Global Equity Diversified Index, or GEDI for short.
On this slide, you can see some of the major lessons we have learned during that time period and the challenges we think your investment providers need to ensure they are addressing. I won't touch on all of them, but let me highlight a couple, if I may. Firstly, you can't think about ESG separately to other risks and opportunities. So having that integrated into the approach, we believe, is the best way to deal with this. We also think this type of approach needs to consider forward-looking risks and opportunities, not just current emissions or carbon intensity metrics, which may be backward looking and not take into account the full picture on a forward-looking basis.
Secondly, and most importantly, we think clients shouldn't be relying on any one factor in SmartBeta investing. Like any good investment strategy and solution, SmartBeta investing should be taking a multi-factor approach to ensure sufficient diversification within each of these strategies. I'm going to quickly touch upon the next slide, if I may, to demonstrate the point.
As you can see from this slide, on the left-hand side, a chart showing individual or single factors and how they have performed leads to a relatively bumpy journey for members investments, depending on which factor they were in at any one period of time. On the right-hand side, what you can see is the combination of factors conducted in the right way into a well-constructed, multi-factor equity solution can lead to better financial outcomes as a result of a smoother, less volatile experience along that journey of wealth accumulation for DC investors.
So lastly, the second key innovation I wanted to talk about is the increasing focus on ensuring DC members can get access to private markets or illiquid asset classes within their investment portfolios. On this slide, I'm going to talk about why, for example, private equity in particular has an important role to play in the investment portfolios of DC members. The significance of private equity in the investment universe has been driven by two things.
Firstly, the fact that there are less companies on major stock markets today than there used to be. For example, in the US markets, there are half the number of companies listed today than there were around 20 years ago. The investable opportunity set, despite the market capitalization of the markets increasing massively, has in fact shrunk significantly. That's not because we have less companies available today to invest in, but because we have more and more companies able to access the capital they need from a growth perspective through the private markets. And so they haven't had the same need to go public as early on in their growth journey as they once used to.
At the start of the 21st century, to make point, private equity firms managed around $600 billion of assets globally. By the end of 2023, private equity assets under management had grown to approximately $7.5 trillion. This represents an increase of more than 12 times over the past two decades.
On this slide, you can see some of the data supporting this. At the top, you can see that Google, when it listed in the year 2004, had raised just $25 million in the private market before going to IPO. Subsequently, in that IPO, they managed to raise a further $1.9 billion, which was used to fund their growth and expansion. It gives you a fundraising ratio of private equity asset raising to public equity asset raising of around 76 to 1.
Fast forward a decade and a half to Uber that listed in 2019. It had in fact raised over $22 billion of capital before IPOing on stock markets. When they went to IPO, they in fact raised $8.1 billion in order to further fund their growth. This ratio of private to public investing was just 0.4 to 1. All of that growth that had occurred was captured by the private equity investors before the IPO as compared to the growth realized since the IPO, unlike in the era of Google, when listing on the stock market was a much more fundamentally important choice for them to access the capital they needed to fund that growth.
So as you can see from this slide, whilst Australia and Canada may have led the way on private markets asset allocations, the rest of the world has had much lower allocations on average. There are several reasons why including private markets into DC investment portfolios is, of course, very complex. However, we would encourage you to be asking your providers, be that your insurance companies, the master trusts you are considering moving to, your investment consultants or administrators, what it is they are doing to help ensure your members can have access to private markets, to help diversify their portfolios, and deliver differentiated, risk-adjusted sources of returns to members. Thank you.
