The benefits of our
investment approach

We work for you, and only you

Every investment decision we make is centred on what’s the best choice for you and other members.

We promote workers’ rights, knowing that members like you make up a significant proportion of the UK’s workforce. We support companies that are cutting carbon emissions because they’re better placed to weather the future, so can make profits for you now and in the years and decades to come. And we work hard to grow your pot, aiming to give you more money than you put in.

Our profits are your profits

We were set up by the government to help all workers save for their future, no matter their age, income, or how much they choose to save. Just like the NHS or BBC, we’re here to serve everyone.

Unlike other pension providers, we don’t answer to shareholders – so all profits go back to you, our members. This is just one of the ways we work to grow your pension pot.

Reducing your risk

We manage billions on your behalf. That makes us a big player in the financial markets. It’s one of the reasons your money is invested across markets like company shares, commodities, property, loans and much more. The more markets you’re in, the more we can reduce your risk.

We invest your pension pot in more places than the average pension provider does, helping to protect your savings. Take the stock market at the start of the pandemic when the FTSE 100 fell 34.4% during the first weeks of lockdown. Thanks to our strategy of spreading your risk, we were able to prevent this loss from significantly affecting the money our members held in our main funds.

Better ways to grow your money

You get access to markets that are only available to the largest investors. You benefit from deals that only large investors get, so you pay less to invest - meaning there’s more of your money to grow. And with millions of members invested alongside you, your money can help change markets for the better.

For example, we’ve put your money into Covid-19 bonds so your Nest pension can help fuel the post-pandemic economic recovery while raising profits for your pot. We’ve provided finance to a registered social housing provider with over 11,000 social housing properties throughout Wiltshire, Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire in the UK. We’ve also been able to fund over 63 renewable energy projects across Europe, including:

• 2 waste-to-energy plants in the UK
• a portfolio of 850 solar assets in France
• 2 onshore wind projects in France
• 6 solar plants in Italy
• 27 solar plants in Spain
• 1 water management plant in France

Closer to home, we’ve partnered with Octopus Renewables to boost our investment in clean energy infrastructure. We’re investing your money in the energy of the future, and into an opportunity that’s likely to generate profits for decades to come.

High quality investments shouldn’t mean high fees

High quality investment management shouldn’t have to come at high prices, putting it out of the reach of most workers. We provide an expert, considered investment strategy to all our members, managing your money with great care.

Like all pension providers, we charge for this. But we work hard to keep costs low, knowing it’s important that more of your hard-earned money goes straight into your pot rather than being lost on fees. As a result, we’ve been able to drive industry charges down, benefitting all workers saving into a pension – not just our members.

You’re in control

We treat you the same whether you have one pound in your account or one million. If you want to leave it to us to manage your money, you can. If you want to choose a different investment approach, you can do that too. Whatever your choice, we aim to be as open and transparent as possible about where your pot is invested. After all, it’s your hard-earned money. You should know how it’s invested and why we’ve invested it that way.

You can find out which companies your money is invested in, see how well our funds are performing, look at key investment decisions and much more.