Senior Investment Manager - Equities

Senior Investment Manager – Equities

Nest Invest

London (Hybrid working)

Nest Invest is on an ambitious journey to become one of the world’s largest asset owners. With c.£60 billion AUM today and taking in over £600m of pension contributions per month, we’re on track to more than double that figure by the end of the decade. This rapid growth brings exciting opportunities and increasing operational complexity.

As our portfolio expands, we shall internally manage more of the investment decision making and process, whilst concurrently engaging with a broader range of external partners. As result, operational excellence becomes more critical than ever. We’re building a capability and culture that embraces innovation, leverages technology, and harnesses the power of data to deliver exceptional outcomes for our members.

The Role

The Senior Investment Manager, Equities will be responsible for the long-term investment strategy, performance, and risk management of Nest’s equity funds, which comprise roughly half (c. £35bn) of the total assets currently under management. Nest Invest’s equity funds are invested through a number of External Fund Management partners who provide specialist equity investment expertise to support a range of strategies including Retirement Date, Ethical, Sharia and Higher Risk funds.

The Senior Investment Manager for Equities will take responsibility for the effective running and oversight of this growing portfolio of externally managed and sub funds, strengthening and developing long term partnerships with a select number of key external managers that are well aligned to Nest Invest in terms of capability and philosophy.

The Senior Investment Manager for Equities will play a key role within the wider Investment function, directly influencing performance and outcomes for the business’s investment strategy, as well as enhancing decision making across Nest Invest’s external manager investment process.

In addition, the Senior Investment Manager, Equities will analyse, monitor and evaluate Nest’s current equity portfolio, at a strategy and fund level, from a performance, ESG, operational and reporting as well as a reputational and investment risk perspective. The Senior Investment Manager, Equities will recommend appropriate benchmarks and target returns, understand macroeconomic dynamics and the return and risk drivers across global listed equities.

You will also identify new investment opportunities for further research and maintain a network of active manager and peer relationships across public equity markets.

The Senior Investment Manager – Equities will report to and make investment recommendations to the Director of Private & Public Markets, the Asset Allocation Committee, the Valuation Committee and the Executive Investment Committee. The investment results of the public equities portfolio are a critical component of Nest’s overall investment portfolio and have a direct impact on Nest Invest meeting its overall objectives.

Key Responsibilities will include:

• Oversee the management of all externally managed equity funds.
• Design and plan resources and strategy to deliver Nest’s agreed investment goals within equities.
• Monitor the performance of existing equity mandates and their underlying investments and assets, tracking key performance indicators, analysing manager reporting and the underlying company’s financial reports, and preparing regular updates for relevant committees and senior management.
• Develop and maintain relationships with third party service providers including external equity fund managers, advisers, consultants, and research providers and build Nest’s reputation as a preferred partner.
• Conduct due diligence on potential investment opportunities, including researching industries, markets, competitors, and potential risks to assess the viability of an investment.
• Review asset valuations prepared by managers to provide a sense check on existing Nest exposures.
• Lead external manager selection and monitoring and the onboarding of new managers, including working with the legal team to finalise documentation, conducting negotiations with managers.
• Work with the Director of…