UK – Epic Investment Consulting, a pension fund trustee advisory company, has made snapped up Adrian White from Hermes and John Siska for its panel and asked the regulator to crack down on unauthorised independent advisers.

Epic was formed to advise pension fund trustees and sponsors on investment issues and provide an independent counterbalance to their existing actuarial and investment consultants, as required under the Myners Principles.

White retires from Hermes Pensions Management in July, (the announced replacement is Adrian Quirke,) but is currently still chief operating officer and deputy chief executive. Siska is currently managing partner of Family Office Solutions in Madrid, providing manager search and performance measurement services.

Epic’s existing advisory panel consists of Joe Welman, chairman of Epic and ex-head of Brit Insurance, which has a 41% stake in Epic; Nick Broadhead, former head of marketing at Barings; Bill Horwood, ex-Philips & Drew (now UBS); Alan Saunders, ex-chief economist at Shell; and Christopher Edge, chief executive at Epic.

Edge said the White and Siska would help it provide independent advice to pension fund trustee boards. But he added: “This is a regulated activity [by the Financial Services_Authority] but a lot of people are employed by pension fund boards to balance advice from consultants, such as Watson Wyatt and Mercer, that are not. Clearly it is much better to be regulated.”

He said the FSA was turning a blind eye to such practices. The FSA said it was a gray area and depended on the way of business code but said if consultants advice was a regulated activity they should be authorised otherwise it could enforce compliance.

Epic is looking at providing advice on hedge funds in the future, through its personal connections with Allenbridge, and has launched a training initiative for trustees. Edge said: “Trustees are often comptetent on the benefits side but there are clear short-comings in the investment area. Opra last week found three-quarters of smaller funds’ trustees had not been on a training course in three years, which is not very clever. But I do not blame trustees as the structure of the industry is wrong.”

Separately, Vanguard Group has released its view on best practice within investment committees. It said the best committees: understood a portfolio’s purpose and had a clear definition of success; a charter outlining roles and responsibilities of committee members; a clear investment strategy; a straightforward process for hiring managers; and common sense.

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