CompaniesApr 27 2015

Fund manager sets up London-based pensions advisory firm

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Fund manager sets up London-based pensions advisory firm

A new independent advisory firm has launched, set to provide a full range of investment advisory and governance services to pension schemes, charities, endowments and other institutional investors.

City Noble will provide advice relating to defined benefit and defined contribution pension schemes, and other institutional investors including insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds, charities and endowments.

City Noble said it aims to “put the power back” in the hands of trustees and institutional investors by restoring impartial advice, adding that it has been created in response to a “growing need” for pure advisory service as trustees face conflicting advice around governance, investments and risk.

The firm is owned and founded by Alexandra Noble, who has more than 30 years of experience as an international fixed income fund manager having worked for major institutions internationally including Gartmore, Bankers Trust and Standard Chartered.

There are also six founding directors of the firm: Ian Maybury, Paul Craven, Eamonn O’Connor, William Bourne, Brian Guck and Fiona Luck. City Noble directors already advise clients with more than £80bn under management.

Ms Noble, founder and managing director at City Noble said: “City Noble’s founding principles are independence, integrity and insight.

“We want to ensure that trustees and other institutional investors make better decisions for the members. The insight we can provide from an impartial and genuinely independent viewpoint allows us to add value to the process.”

“There is a great need for independent advice around investment strategies in a sector where consultants are increasingly conflicted.

“Trustees and employers need truly independent insight that is not constrained by house views, themselves a product of the solutions consultants wish to sell. Our aim at City Noble is to offer a level of client care, objectivity and independent thinking increasingly lacking in the sector.”

ruth.gillbe@ft.com