LONDON, 8 October 2013 – Aon Hewitt, the global talent, retirement and health solutions business of Aon plc (NYSE:AON), has announced further findings from the poll of over 750 delegates at its annual pension conferences earlier this year.

The poll's results highlight the increasing willingness of trustees to consider a wider range of asset classes than has historically been the case within the industry. The data indicates that trustees are now much more prepared to accept that alternative assets have both a key role to play in reducing portfolio risk and may offer the chance of delivering attractive returns.

At this year’s annual conferences, 40% of delegates said they were open to the idea of investing in new asset classes.  This response reflected the findings of Aon Hewitt’s 2013 Global Pension Risk Survey which found that 36% of schemes expect to increase their allocation to alternatives over the next 12 months.

Tim Giles, partner in Aon Hewitt’s Global Investment Practice said:
"In the current hostile market environment, pension schemes are examining every opportunity to balance risk and reward in their investment strategy. The response we saw from the delegate survey at our conferences both backed up the findings of our survey earlier in the year and highlighted the increasing readiness that trustees and schemes are showing to investigate new opportunities. These seem to be taking various forms, including examining alternatives to traditional indexation approaches, accessing a wider spectrum of absolute return bonds funds or exploring better diversified hedge fund investments.

With this increase, has come a rise in the number of schemes seeking guidance from third party experts on both how to assess and to access new asset classes and investment strategies with which they were previously unfamiliar.

Tim Giles continued:
"As a consequence of this growing willingness to look at new options, some schemes are also strengthening their expertise in order to have a better understanding of the asset classes they are using - and this is reflected by the growing prevalence of fiduciary management. The recently released Aon Hewitt Delegated Investment Survey 2013 showed that many schemes regard increased expertise as the main advantage of delegation."

Media Contact: 
 Colin Mayes                                      Giles Abbott
 Aon Hewitt                                       Capital MSL
 01372 733689                                   020 7307 5340
 colin.mayes@aonhewitt.com              giles.abbott@capitalmsl.com
 

Notes to editors

Aon Hewitt Investment Consulting

Aon Hewitt Investment Consulting provides institutional investment advisory experience and knowledge to over $4 trillion assets throughout the world. Our services and advice cover alternative financing, compliance/operational due diligence, custody, delegated consulting, flight planning , global asset allocation, governance, liability management, manager research, risk management, risk modelling, risk settlement and transition etc. Our capability is founded on a large and diverse team of investment specialists who include former fund managers, investment bankers, economists and financial analysts among others.

About Aon Hewitt

Aon Hewitt empowers organisations and individuals to secure a better future through innovative talent, retirement and health solutions. We advise, design and execute a wide range of solutions that enable clients to cultivate talent to drive organisational and personal performance and growth, navigate risk while providing new levels of financial security, and redefine health solutions for greater choice, affordability and wellness.  Aon Hewitt is the global leader in human resource solutions, with over 30,000 professionals in 90 countries serving more than 20,000 clients worldwide.  For more information on Aon Hewitt, please visit www.aonhewitt.com.

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About Aon
Aon plc (NYSE:AON) is the leading global provider of risk management, insurance and reinsurance brokerage, and human resources solutions and outsourcing services. Through its more than 65,000 colleagues worldwide, Aon unites to empower results for clients in over 120 countries via innovative and effective risk and people solutions and through industry-leading global resources and technical expertise. Aon has been named repeatedly as the world’s best broker, best insurance intermediary, reinsurance intermediary, captives manager and best employee benefits consulting firm by multiple industry sources. Visit www.aon.com for more information on Aon and www.aon.com/manchesterunited to learn about Aon’s global partnership and shirt sponsorship with Manchester United.