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    About us

    About us

    Your journey. Not ours.

    Not satisfied that client needs were being properly met by asset managers, we chose a different approach.

    We start by identifying your desired outcome, and focus on helping you maximize the certainty of achieving it.

    To do this, we:

    • direct significant resources to diagnosing the critical risks that influence your outcome
    • have developed active fixed income and derivative investment tools that help you target risk exposures more precisely
    • design solutions that aim to be more resilient against uncertainty

    Read our differentiated mission statement.

    We offer a range of specialized capabilities that help clients at different stages of their investment journey.

    Insight has a reputation for high quality, outcome-oriented investment solutions and the highest standards of service.

    For a generation, Insight has partnered with clients to address the tough problems, introducing leading-edge thinking and innovation to help achieve their goals.

    David Leduc, CEO, North America

    What makes Insight different?

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      Outcomes matter, not simply benchmarks

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      Certainty, not risk

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      Capabilities, not products

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      High-touch, not set-and-forget

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      Advocates, not just partners

    • We recognize that you are investing for a specific purpose.

      Whether we are managing tailored strategies or pooled funds, we focus on achieving a clear, defined outcome.

    • We refrain from using forecast-based investment models as the real world is uncertain. Instead, we focus on investment strategies that offer higher certainty in attaining your desired outcome.

      We also aim to build flexible and resilient portfolios that help you navigate future shocks.

    • We build our capabilities in response to our clients' needs, not to create standalone products.

      We develop further expertise as clients’ needs evolve, often challenging conventional thinking and innovating to meet new challenges.

    • As a client, you have ongoing access to multiple experts, from portfolio managers and actuaries to solutions designers and lawyers at every step of your journey.

      Our primary objective is an unwavering focus on quality of performance and quality of client service. This means doing the hard things, such as extra research, tailored portfolios and bespoke reporting.

    • We believe in mutual respect and constructive challenge. We welcome ongoing engagement with our clients to ensure we keep developing to meet their needs.

      We dig deep with you to diagnose the true problem. Our specialists will partner with you to analyze your needs and cross-examine your objectives before working with you to create a suitable strategy.

    Our history of shaping the solutions industry

    1. 2002
    2. 2003
    3. 2004
    4. 2005
    5. 2006
    6. 2008
    7. 2009
    8. 2011
    9. 2012
    10. 2015
    11. 2016
    12. 2017
    13. 2018
    14. 2019
    15. 2020
    16. 2021
      • Incorporated environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks in fixed income analysis and engagement to widen the risk factors considered
      • Developed the Insight business to focus on managing risk for pension plans, looking beyond simple bond exposure to develop more precise and efficient forms of liability-driven investment (LDI)
      • Pioneered use of interest rate and inflation derivative strategies to hedge liability risks, reducing the funded status volatility for pension plans
      • Developed institutional-quality absolute return fixed income strategies for wholesale market to better align client returns with their target outcomes
      • Applied ‘intelligent’ hedge management techniques to identify arbitrage opportunities between physical and derivative hedge instruments, helping clients to maintain the integrity of their hedges at a lower cost
      • Founding signatory to UN-supported Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI)
      • Introduced sophisticated pooled funds to help pension plans of all sizes to hedge interest rate and inflation risks more precisely
      • Introduced equity, credit, currency and property overlays to help clients utilize capital more efficiently to manage risk and gain market exposure
      • Launched buy-and-maintain approach to credit, helping clients meet specific yield, duration and credit quality objectives with limited turnover and transaction costs
      • Proactive and in-depth engagement with policymakers and other stakeholders led to an exemption for pension plans from clearing derivatives under major European regulations – helping plans avoid unnecessary costs and potential loss of value effectively and prudently
      • Developed proprietary system to analyse all available derivatives to support construction of efficient liability hedges, opening up more investment options for clients
      • Expanded our LDI offering by introducing pooled funds that seek to offer a liability hedge for pension plans of all sizes, expanding access to our market-leading capabilities
      • Introduced a proprietary system to analyze all available fixed income and derivative instruments to support solutions design, able to incorporate a wide range of client-specific requirements to support management of exposures across the whole portfolio

       

      • Led the market in offering access to secured finance assets: less-crowded and high quality debt investments that offer a premium above corporate debt by providing access to the specialist capabilities to unlock the complexity premium
      • First to offer a government liquidity solution using non-bank repo, providing cash investors the potential for security without compromising on liquidity and yield relative to prime money market funds – and also offering pension plans a new source of liquidity
      • Engaged extensively on issues around the transition from risk-free rates such as LIBOR, interacting with policymakers and stakeholders, seeking to ensure a viable long-term solution for the wider market and a smooth transition for our clients
      • Pioneered self-managed de-risking models to help plans replicate the characteristics of insurance risk transfer contacts without the need to pay a premium, helping them to achieve their endgame more targets with greater certainty
      • Introduced new tools to help pension plans measure and manage longevity risk
      • Helped pension plans of all sizes to manage their liquidity requirements with pooled funds focused on maturing credit investments
      • Partnered with clients to develop strategies with impact and sustainability targets to help them better integrate ESG risks in their portfolios
      • Focused on helping clients assess their liquidity needs, considering how to adapt their liquidity allocations to help maximize the certainty of achieving their target outcome
      • Introduced the industry’s first maturing fixed income benchmarks to support liquidity management using cashflow-driven investing (CDI) solutions
      • Partnered with multiple clients to manage truly integrated solutions across their plan – enabling them to holistically address more factors that influence their investment journey, use assets efficiently for multiple purposes, and balance competing needs more effectively
      • Introduced proprietary ESG ratings, Prime, incorporating multiple data sources and our analysts’ views in seeking to resolve gaps and inconsistencies in widely available ESG data, and to support it with our own expert analysis
      • Launched a major industry-wide engagement in the UK, encouraging stakeholders to respond to proposed changes to inflation measures – the proposals could have a negative impact on pensioners’ future retirement income and how pension plans hedge inflation risks
      • We substantially expanded our responsible investment policy, to spell out in detail the six principles that guide our business and investment approach. 
      • Introduced Efficient Beta (2005), US Municipals (1987) and Stable Value (1983) capabilities as part of the transition of fixed income teams from Mellon Investments2
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    Investing responsibly

    Investing responsibly

    We believe that relevant and material ESG issues can have a financial impact alongside other investment risks. Our fixed income processes seek to reflect this in our research and engagement with companies and governments, as we look to understand the issues that might affect them.

    We analyze ESG issues alongside other investment risks and, where appropriate, engage with companies and governments to better understand all of the issues that affect them.

    Read more

    Learn more

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