Nest, the UK’s largest workplace pension scheme by members, and BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, today announced a new partnership, where Nest will use BlackRock Aladdin to manage the risk of its entire investment strategy on a single platform.
Managing key investment risks within Nest’s portfolio is a crucial part of its long-term plan to continue evolving its investment strategies across both public and private markets.
The Whole Portfolio View and Aladdin Climate components of the Aladdin platform allow Nest to monitor more than 3,000 risk factors across fixed income, equity, foreign exchange, and private markets, and quantify the financial impact of climate-related risks. This will help Nest build a more resilient portfolio and enhance its capability to undertake greater and more sophisticated risk analysis.
Discussing the procurement, Jiwei Dong, Nest’s Head of Market Risk & Asset Allocation, said:
“The complexities facing a sophisticated portfolio like Nest’s are significant. It’s crucial we upgrade our services in line with our projected growth to be a £100bn scheme by the end of the decade.
“Just in the past few years, we’ve expanded our investable universe to include more illiquid assets while also adopting more complicated public market investment strategies. Aladdin allows us to get a holistic view on risk profiles of our multi-asset portfolios, and fully integrate ESG factors within our risk management process, matching the level of complexity we need.”
Speaking about the expanding partnership, Sarah Melvin, Head of UK, BlackRock, said:
“Nest plays a crucial role in supporting over 12 million people in the UK saving for their retirement. We share a joint purpose of helping more and more people experience financial well-being, so are delighted to be deepening our long-standing partnership.
“We are proud to have been chosen by Nest to provide enhanced analytics through Aladdin’s Investment Risk and Aladdin Climate platforms, which will in turn help them to serve their members better.”
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