Graham Bryant

Trustee Director

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Graham is Lead Director on six schemes, three as a co-trustee and three as sole trustee. All of his schemes have an overseas parent company, three of which are US based and one has an open DC section.

A chartered accountant with an MA in Finance, Graham has had broad commercial exposure prior to 13 years’ extensive experience at a senior level working with a wide range of pension funds and trustee boards. He has held senior advisory roles both for Sponsor and Trustee over a range of funds from £3m to £17bn, chaired Investment Committees, and led project teams that have successfully wound up several pension funds in different jurisdictions. He has also had experience with several smaller U.K. pension funds, some with joint venture partners requiring sensitive management of deficits, investments, and journey plans, and have successfully taken pension funds to buy-out.

Graham has the Award in Pension Trusteeship (APT) and is an Accredited Member of the Association of Professional Pension Trustees (AMAPPT).

  • Difficult valuation exercises
  • Expertise in all facets of delivering governance services
  • Expertise in special situations
  • Investment strategy
  • Mentoring lay trustees
  • Ongoing support to DB/Hybrid schemes – either in the context of chair or board member
  • Ongoing support to DC
  • Ongoing support to large and/or complex schemes – in the area of common trustee boards/rationalising advisers
  • Repairing/rebuilding trustee relationships
  • Restructuring
  • Risk transfer (buy in/buy out)
  • Scheme closures
  • Scheme mergers and demergers
  • Sole trusteeship
  • Working to agree long-term objectives
  • As an independent trustee and chair, worked with the trustee board, actuary, covenant advisor, and the company to finalise a difficult valuation and review the long-term funding plan and schedule of contributions, while negotiating a parental guarantee with the U.S. parent.
  • As an independent trustee and chair, recently agreed on risk reduction strategies for two schemes and plan to achieve buy-out within the next 3-5 years. This includes all aspects of benefit and legal audit and steps to implement GMP equalization.
  • As an independent trustee and chair, worked closely with the trustee board, investment advisor, and the company to develop a new investment strategy leading into a plan for buy-out.
  • Successfully managed the buy-out project and reinsurance of pension funds in several countries, creating significant value, saving cash, and removing local administration.
  • As chair of the investment committee, dealing with a de-risking program including the use of liability matching, currency hedging, and asset pooling.
  • Successfully managed the wind-up of several UK pension funds, working with the trustees to solve challenges like defective data and member disputes. One of the pension funds had several DC sections.
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