Meet the Trustees

Meet the Trustees

The Mercedes-Benz UK Pension Scheme is looked after by a Trustee company, Daimler UK Trustees Limited. The directors meet formally as a board four times a year but also meet regularly in their sub-committees and project working groups.

The Trustee makes sure the Scheme’s assets are looked after properly and pension benefits are paid to the right people, at the right time. They work with a number of independent experts who provide advice around investments, risk and governance.


Sub-committees

In addition to the Trustee Board, some trustee directors sit on at least one of the three sub-committees that focus on managing a specific area of the Scheme.

  • Investment sub-committee: Manages the Scheme’s assets to ensure all members’ pension benefits can be paid now and in the future
  • Communication sub-committee: Develops better ways to effectively communicate and engage with members
  • Governance sub-committee: Ensures consistency and mitigates risks in the management of the Scheme.



The Scheme's investment strategy


One of the Trustee's most important activities is to ensure that funds exist to pay members' benefits both now and in the future. This is a long-term consideration as these benefits will need to continue to be paid for more than forty years and beyond. This requires the trustee directors to make sure that not only are the Scheme’s funds invested securely, but that they also generate the necessary cashflow at the appropriate time and achieve the necessary growth to meet the Scheme’s commitments to its members. With the Company closing the Scheme to the future build-up of benefits at the end of 2020, it became even more essential for these goals to be achieved.

  • Read the latest on the Scheme's investment strategy

    The Trustee Board manages over £500 million of assets which are invested across a range of investments. These investments have been carefully selected to achieve moderate growth, at minimal risk, whilst ensuring there is adequate cashflow to meet the costs of running the Scheme and paying benefits to members. These investments are decided upon and managed by the Investment sub-committee who are supported and guided by the Scheme’s investment consultants, XPS. Through prudent management of the Scheme’s assets, the Trustee Board has achieved a growth in Scheme funding over the past ten years from a position where it was funded at c. 92% (on a technical provisions basis) to its current position where it is now funded at around 110% (and this despite recent upheavals in markets caused by the coronavirus epidemic and the uncertainties surrounding Brexit). You can find an update on the Scheme's latest funding position in our most recent Summary Funding Statement.

    However, it is important that the Trustee continues to stress test the Scheme’s investment strategy and ensures it remains appropriate for changing circumstances. Following the Company’s decision to close the Scheme to the future build-up of benefits, the Trustee Board undertook a review of the Scheme’s investments to make sure they continued to meet their objectives and, as a result, made a number of changes to reduce exposure to equities and low return gilts and to move funds into secure and income-generating investments.

    The investment portfolio, as at 1 January 2022, looks as follows:

    Investment Type (Manager)

    Strategic Asset Allocation

    Buy & Maintain Corporate Bonds (Insight)

    40%

    Liability Driven Investment – LDI (Insight)

    35%

    Multi-Sector Credit Fund (Blackrock)

    10%

    Liquidity Fund (Aviva secured income fund)

    4%

    Asset Backed Private Credit (Aberdeen)

    4%

    UK Equities (Blackrock)

    3%

    Global Equities (Blackrock)

    4%

    Total

    100%

Chair of the Trustee Board

Andrew
  • Andy Harrison

    Independent Director (The Law Debenture Pension Trustee Corporation plc)

    Andy Harrison is the Chair of the Trustee Board and was appointed as a Company Nominated Director in December 2019. He has been a professional trustee for 3 years and represents the Law Debenture Pension Trustee Corporation plc. Prior to this, he spent almost 10 years in investment banking and nearly 20 years in investment management. Andy is also a member of the Investment Committee. In his spare time, he enjoys music, walking and craft beer.

    Date of Appointment (The Law Debenture Pension Trustee Corporation plc): 23 October 1997

Member Nominated Directors

Chris
  • Chris Franklin

    Chris Franklin was appointed as a Member Nominated Director in August 2011. He is Chair of the Communication sub-committee and a member of both the Investment and the Governance sub-committees. In 2011, after over 40 years' service, he retired from Mercedes-Benz (UK) Limited having served a variety of roles in After Sales, covering Cars, Trucks and Vans.  Outside work, Chris is a keen motorcyclist, and a family historian.

    Date of Appointment: 18 August 2011

Liam
  • Liam Ilbury

    Liam Ilbury has been a Trustee since 2011, but was most recently appointed as a Member Nominated Director in August 2018. He is Chair of the Investment sub-committee and a member of the Communication sub-committee. In 2011, after 40 years’ service, he retired from Mercedes-Benz UK Limited as Director of After Sales for Commercial Vehicles. Since retiring, Liam has completed a number of property redevelopments and is currently renovating a long-neglected Victorian cottage.

    Date of Appointment: 1 August 2018


Company Nominated Directors

Harald
  • Harald Henn

    Harald Henn was appointed as a Company Nominated Director in December 2018 and he is a member of the Governance sub-Committee. He has over 20 years of experience with Daimler AG and has served on various Boards in the US, Japan and Canada. Outside the office, he enjoys spending time with his family, running along the Ouse, playing golf and the piano and learning Japanese.

    Date of Appointment: 1 December 2018

Rachael Edwards
  • Rachael Edwards

    Rachael was appointed as a Company Nominated Director in January 2015 and she is a member of the Communications sub-committee. She joined Mercedes-Benz UK Limited in 2009 and has been the HR Director since December 2014. Outside of work, Rachael loves taking her Daughter Lily on little excursions, which usually involves farm animals, dining out with family and friends and travelling abroad.

    Date of Appointment: 1 January 2015

Angela
  • Angela Shepherd

    Angela Shepherd was appointed as a Company Nominated Director in May 2018 and she is Chair of the Governance sub-committee. She joined Mercedes-Benz UK Limited as a Graduate Trainee and, since December 2019, has been CEO of the Mercedes-Benz Retail Group. Angela enjoys being in the garden, watching her son play football and travelling with friends and family.

    Date of Appointment: 1 May 2018


The Trustee's advisers

The Trustee works with a number of suppliers to help manage the Scheme. One of the key areas where support and advice is provided is in the field of investments, to help build an appropriate portfolio to ensure the Scheme can meet both its current and future financial obligations to its members. Please meet Alasdair Gill and Sian Pringle who provide this support to the Trustee on behalf of XPS Group, our investment consultants. XPS was appointed as actuarial and investment advisers to the Trustee in 2020.

Harald
  • Alasdair Gill

    Alasdair Gill is the lead investment consultant to the Trustee, mainly advising the investment sub-committee on all aspects of the Scheme’s investment portfolio. This includes the strategic allocation between different asset classes (such as company shares and safer bond type investments), which investment managers to appoint to manage these assets, and how to manage risk in the portfolio using techniques such as liability hedging. Alasdair is a Partner at XPS and has 23 years’ experience in advising on investments. Prior to working in investments, he qualified as an actuary, and he also has an engineering degree! In his spare time, Alasdair is a keen cyclist and a regular golfer.

Harald
  • Sian Pringle

    Alasdair is supported in his role by Sian Pringle, a Senior Investment Consultant at XPS. Sian is responsible for providing the investment sub-committee with quarterly monitoring reports which detail the assets' performance over the quarter and provides regular updates on each of the funds and managers that the Scheme invests in. The wider investment team also assist in carrying out any asset transitions from one manager to another. Sian is a qualified actuary with 9 years’ experience in the industry. When not advising pension schemes on their investment strategies, Sian enjoys getting outdoors – particularly with her recent addition to the family, a labradoodle called Monty.