Sandra, can you give me an overview of your background before joining Irish Life Investment Managers (ILIM)?
I am an actuary by profession having started my career in Mercer with a focus on pension consultancy for a range of public and private sector defined benefit schemes and multi-national defined contribution schemes in Ireland.
I subsequently moved to a large wealth management firm in Ireland where I led the development and expansion of the financial planning and wealth management proposition for high net worth private clients.
Nearly three years ago I moved to Irish Life Investment Managers (ILIM) to join the executive management team with responsibility for the expansion of ILIM into international markets.
I also sit on the Pension Council for Ireland – an advisory committee to advise the government on future pension policy and SIF Ireland – an advisory committee to promote Ireland as a leader in sustainable investments.
What is the brief of your newly created role international role at ILIM?
My responsibility is to lead ILIM’s international business and hold overall responsibility for international strategic partnerships. This role requires me to lead on the expansion of ILIM into international markets and lead on product development to support our strategic partners globally and ensure we continue to meet their evolving needs.
How much business does ILIM do in its home market in terms of assets under management and what is the split between retail and institutional?
ILIM is a market leader in the institutional asset management business in its home market and together with our partner – Irish Life Assurance Company – we have secured market leading positions in the retail and defined contribution markets also.
We have over €74bn in assets under administration and €65bn in assets under management.
Of this 65% is for domestic clients and 35% for international clients, and 22% is retail via Irish Life Assurance Company and Distribution Partners who use our capabilities to serve the retail market in Ireland and internationally.
What is your international distribution strategy?
Our international strategy is focused on development of distribution partnerships where we support our partners to deliver innovative and efficient solutions to their clients leveraging our fund management expertise in indexation and quantitative solutions.
Our overall strength and strategic focus would be in relation to building long term solution focussed relationships with our clients where our clients use our core competencies (either on a stand-alone basis or combined with other external strategies) to deliver their own multi asset solutions.
Our core capabilities are
- Indexation (both market cap and Smart Beta/Factor strategies) – we are A rated by global consultancies and differentiate our indexed proposition based on flexibility and tailoring that we offer to our Partners (we apply this capability to any index, any asset class and enable tailoring to meet client needs); and
- factor/quantitative strategies – we have been researching and developing proprietary strategies underpinned by factor investing for over 20 years. We have a strong multi factor philosophy and have a proven track-record of capturing factor risk premia across economic cycles and asset classes enabling us leverage these insights to meet w wide range of client objectives from Alpha generation to risk management.
