Scottish Leather Group selects Isio as partner for pension services
Scottish Leather Group has selected Isio as its partner for pension consulting services. The specialist firm will work as scheme actuary, investment advisor and administrator to its Group Pension Schemes.
Isio was formed following the sale of KPMG UK’s Pension Practice to a private equity firm in 2020. Known and respected for its agility, the Isio team has since grown to 800 people across nine regional hubs, dealing with over 1,000 client relationships, small to blue chip; public to private.
Among the clients are household names such as Fujitsu and Tui. The latest entity to join Isio’s growing roster of clients is Scottish Leather Group – a historic employer, with more than 500 years of service in the textiles sector.
With seven generations of family tanners and leather makers, Scottish Leather Group has long created the world’s finest sustainable leather, for many of the world’s most respected companies.
Iain McFadyen CEO of Scottish Leather Group said, “Isio not only demonstrated that it could deliver quality strategic advice but impressed us with how much passion they showed for the work. The team had clearly taken the time to get to know us, understand our needs and as a result were able to present a proposal that more than met our objectives and was focused on delivering a collaborative and personable approach with clear outcomes.”
The client picked Isio for its Scottish Leather Group Pension Schemes following a thorough selection process. The Trustees decided to review the existing provider, in place for a number of years, to ensure they had the optimal partner and approach for the next stage on the schemes' journey. The pension pot will now benefit from Isio’s solutions for the mounting challenges pension and benefit schemes face.
Julie Gray, partner and head of Isio in Scotland commented, “We are delighted to be working with such a prestigious Scottish brand and its Trustees to drive forward the strategic journey for the Schemes. We are also really pleased that the Trustees particularly recognised our fresh, joined-up people-first approach. This is central to everything we do as we continue to successfully grow our pensions advisory practice in Scotland.”
Moving service providers can look like a daunting task for trustee boards. However, according to Mike Kennedy, Director of ProPensions and independent trustee to Scottish Leather Group’s scheme, the Isio team assuaged these fears by setting out the timescales and processes to be followed, while keeping the trustees fully appraised as the exercise progressed.
Kennedy added, “Their engaging and proactive style resulted in a successful handover, enabling them to begin providing strategic advice to the trustees from the outset and ensuring a seamless provision of services to our members.”