Insight Investment

Under section 414 of the UK 2006 Companies Act (the “Act”), the Company is required to include a section 172 statement, describing how the directors have had due regard to those matters set out in section 172 of the Act during the period in question.  In addressing these matters, we would like to expand on the following:

 

Our Mission Statement

Insight's mission is to offer investors a different approach to achieving their investment goals; one that prioritises the certainty of meeting their chosen objectives in contrast to the traditional focus on maximising return and minimising volatility. We believe that our emphasis on certainty, a dimension largely neglected by the industry, provides investors with an improved investment experience, resulting in a more secure retirement or more confidence in their ability to acquire specific assets in the future. Furthermore, we tailor portfolios directly to clients' desired outcome rather than investing in generic products that benefit the manager more than the investor, further enhancing the chances of success.

We are committed to prioritising our clients' interests above all else in the conduct of our business and to delivering high quality investment solutions and service. Our business model rests on a simple equation: high quality leads to client advocacy which translates into business success. We, therefore, focus our efforts on delivering quality and are always prepared to forego business opportunities that conflict or weaken our ability to do so.

Focusing only on what we are good at rather than being everything for everyone is a key requirement for achieving that, so is working in partnership with our clients and their advisors. This allows us to better understand their needs and provide them with the tools and professional education they need for their investment journey. We also pledge to engage with relevant official and regulatory bodies to represent their interest and help find solutions that balance their benefits with those of society at large.

Aligning all stakeholders' interests is essential for the long-term success of any organisation. We align the interests of our clients and shareholders by taking a long-term view of the success of the business, allowing us to focus our energies on delivering to our clients. A significant portion of our staff's compensation is deferred and held in company shares. By giving our employees an economic stake in the business we help align their interest with those of the other stakeholders.

As stewards of society’s savings, we also believe we have broader responsibilities to the world in which we operate. This starts with ensuring that our investment processes effectively consider financially material environmental, social and governance risks and opportunities within relevant strategies. We also manage portfolios that go beyond this for clients who have asked us to support their sustainability outcomes.

None of this would be possible without the ability to attract and motivate the right employees. We do not believe that any gender, race, or group of any kind has a monopoly on the talent that we need to succeed. We also believe that diverse groups make more informed and balanced decisions. We are therefore committed to looking for talent everywhere and ensuring that every individual has the opportunity and support to succeed at Insight.

We strive to create an ego free and collaborative environment where everyone is held accountable, but success is shared collectively. An environment where employees can speak up to share their views or challenge others’ views. We encourage continuous improvement at the individual level as well as the business level and make it a point to learn from our mistakes. Much of this boils down to putting the principle of "doing the right thing" at the heart of all our decisions.

The examples provided below show positive outcomes following consideration by the Insight Board of matters set out in section 172 of the Act during 2024.

 

BUSINESS RELATIONSHIPS WITH KEY STAKEHOLDERS

Clients

Clients are Insight’s key stakeholders. Over the past year, we have continued to advocate on behalf of our UK defined benefit (DB) pension scheme clients, engaging with policymakers and industry bodies through dialogue and consultation submissions. We have been vocal in the media and in our communications to policymakers about our belief that trustees and sponsors of UK DB schemes should be encouraged and enabled to run on their schemes for the long term, rather than focusing only on achieving a transfer of assets to an insurer in the near term. This would help reinvigorate UK capital markets and could potentially be used to bolster Defined Contribution pension schemes. It could also generate sizeable tax revenues for the government in the order of tens of billions of pounds. This is all achievable while protecting and enhancing the security of pensions for members and the interests of corporate sponsors.

We have also received industry recognition, with Insight confirmed in December 2024 as a Quality Leader for UK Investment Management Service in 2024 by Coalition Greenwich. Insight is now rated in the top decile for Service Quality by UK Institutional Clients in 10 of the last 12 years.

Insight also maintains strong relationships with consultants, as evidenced in the Coalition Greenwich UK Investment Consultant Research 2024. This ranked Insight in first place for both Overall LDI Quality and Overall Fixed Income Quality.  Insight has now been ranked in first place for Overall LDI Quality for 14 consecutive years and has ranked in first place for Overall Fixed Income Quality in nine of the last 11 years.

The Board continues to constructively challenge the business to maintain this high level of advocacy, including a review of overall investment performance delivered for clients.

 

Employees

Insight’s employees are critical stakeholders, and the Board seeks to ensure that a culture which values client focus, accountability, continuous improvement, teamwork and collaboration is maintained. Insight employs external expertise to assess employee sentiment, communicating the outcomes back to the Board. Management directs attention to areas requiring improvement.

Examples of activities to support inclusion and employee engagement include the employee affinity groups, maintaining a flat management structure to allow for efficient escalation of issues and awareness-raising around Insight’s Speaking Up Policy. Offices are designed to be inclusive spaces that promote teamwork.

Insight continues to offer hybrid and remote working programmes to provide flexibility to colleagues and to attract and retain diverse talent. These are:

• A hybrid working model of three days working in the office and two days working from home.
• An Extended Remote Working Programme which allows colleagues to work remotely from home or another location for up to two weeks annually.
• A Parent Leave Policy, available globally, providing extended paid time off to all parents, regardless of gender.
• Global caregiver leave providing 10 paid days for all to help manage planned and unplanned family care circumstances.

Highlights of the most recent (November 2024) external assessment of employee sentiment include:

• 86% of colleagues agree that managers are good at promoting teamwork and collaboration
• 83% of colleagues believe Insight sets high standards of performance
• 76% of colleagues are proud to tell others they work for Insight
• 79% of colleagues would recommend Insight as a place to work

 

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI)

We believe that well integrated, diverse teams deliver better outcomes. Our mission is to ensure that Insight continues to cultivate our culture of inclusion, where people with different perspectives and backgrounds can thrive and collaborate.

Our DEI strategy emphasises three focus areas: Our People, Our Culture and Our Reputation.

Our goal is to ensure everyone at Insight is part of our DEI Programme.

We believe that:

1. Well integrated, diverse teams deliver better outcomes.
2. A culture of belonging, where employees feel seen, heard and represented fosters high performance.
3. A variety of perspectives, backgrounds, and cultures is needed to think differently and challenge the status quo. Ensuring all can contribute to problem-solving is at the core of how we add value to our clients.
4. Nurturing an inclusive, positive culture is essential for leadership in investment management.

 

We strive to create an ego-free and collaborative environment where everyone is held accountable, but success is shared collectively.

We want to create an environment where employees can speak up to share their views or challenge others’ views. We encourage continuous improvement at the individual level as well as the business level and make it a point to learn from our mistakes.

In recent years we have evolved our approach.

Examples include:

1. Colleagues from under-represented and minority groups have set up Affinity Groups which operate firm-wide to build community within the firm and shine a spotlight on ways we can further improve their employee experience. These grassroots groups are supported by various members of the firm’s EMC who have stepped forward to sponsor and advocate for these employee-led groups.
2. We have strengthened our recruitment processes and are working with our external partners in order to address the societal inequities that can make it more challenging for talented people from disadvantaged backgrounds to break into our industry. These changes help us deliver more representative shortlists. We do not believe that any gender, race or group of any kind has a monopoly on the talent we need to succeed. These changes are helping us increase the diversity of the new colleagues we hire.
3. DEI training is provided in various formats including departmental sessions, articles and events including interactive webinars and external speakers such as Paralympian Stef Reid on leadership and broadcaster Samantha Baines on hearing loss.

The Board is kept informed of the Company’s efforts in addressing DEI issues and monitors developments in this area. 

 

Impact on the Community and Environment

Insight has a Corporate Social and Responsibility programme which focuses on three key pillars:

• Our markets: We seek to protect clients’ interests and operate our business with integrity and resilience.
• Our people: We seek to encourage effective leadership, wellbeing, diversity and inclusion for our staff.
• Our world: We seek to invest and act responsibly to protect the wider world and to support the communities that we operate in.

Insight runs a Community Impact Programme which encompasses colleague donation and community volunteering. All employees are entitled to take two volunteering days a year, partnering interests or skills with a broad selection of charities. 

We also partner with a series of external initiatives that support communities, for example the charity RedSTART, which works with schools in disadvantaged settings, running programmes for pupils and providing resources for teachers and parents. Its aim is to support the next generation in getting a head start with their financial future. Through this partnership, colleagues have the opportunity to volunteer and use their financial literacy to develop the financial skills of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, partnering with major financial institutions, local businesses and over 600 volunteers in five key locations across the UK.

Colleagues take part in fundraising activities in support of a number of charities globally with a common theme of meeting basic needs. Colleagues in our offices vote on local charities to support. In 2024, the London office voted to support The Felix Project, which fights hunger and food waste, and the Manchester office selected Wood Street Mission, which works with low-income families across Manchester and Salford to provide children’s clothing, school uniforms, bedding, toys and books. 

 

High Standards of Business Conduct

Insight has an unwavering commitment to stewardship. Among other activities to support our clients, in 2024 Insight has:

• Enhanced the advanced responsible investment training that we provide to investment and client-facing teams and responsible investment champions across our business, introducing masterclasses on areas such as climate, biodiversity, data and metrics as well as in depth training on our proprietary research tools and methodologies.
• Updated Task Force on Climate Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) reporting on gilts in UK LDI mandates to reflect data releases and to align with Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials (PCAF) guidance.
• Held discussions with clients on TCFD reporting and the considerations involved with non-gilt alternatives in LDI portfolios as well as providing comprehensive client training on ESG related topics.
• Developed a framework that allows systematic fixed income strategies to incorporate ESG characteristics, some of which have now been converted to Article 8 under SFDR.
• Identified three central engagement themes for 2024: climate change, natural capital, and labour rights, undertaking engagement activities and sharing updates with clients and consultants.
• Issued a second phase questionnaire as part of our counterparty engagement programme, building on phase one of this exercise in 2022.

 

During the year the directors had also undertaken multiple training sessions and were subject to an external board assessment to help bolster the overall governance framework within Insight.  

 

About the Insight Responsibility Oversight Committee (IROC)

IROC is regarded as a key internal forum which provides oversight and accountability for ESG related activities and their application across all business lines and investment activities.  One of the objectives is to set strategic priorities and apply appropriate oversight to ensure that responsible investment performance aligns with Insight’s organisational objectives. The IROC is chaired by Insight’s CEO and oversees a range of committees which focus on various aspects of the Firm’s commitments to responsible investment on behalf of clients. 

IROC’s focus includes oversight and accountability for climate strategy and policy, as well as overseeing investment and operational activities.  Work done by IROC around climate change is relayed back to the Board via the Climate Change Resiliency Committee (a sub-committee to IROC).

 

Regulatory Bodies & Suppliers

The Directors recognise that as part of the objective to promote the long-term success of the business, maintaining a high standard of business conduct when dealing with stakeholders such as regulatory bodies and vendors is vital.  Insight’s interactions with these stakeholders throughout 2024 are set out below.

 

Regulators

Insight regularly collaborates with regulators and other market participants in order to contribute to fair, transparent and robust markets. The Board encourages management to maintain effective engagements with bodies such as the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), Central Bank of Ireland, (CBI), ESMA, European Commission, Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), the Bank of England (BoE) as well as the UK Treasury.  The Board also requires to be kept informed on any material regulatory changes which could impact the long-term success of the business.

Insight regularly engages with regulators on many different topics and issues as and when they arise, the board is kept fully informed by Insight Compliance on key regulatory engagement & communication as part of the Board Reporting process.  This is with a view to ensuring there is appropriate Board challenge and discussion on the key regulatory engagements applicable to the firm.  Additionally, the Board is fully supportive of Insight participating in various engagements with regulators on potential new guidance and regulations.  Examples of regulatory development topics that Insight has engaged on with regulators during the period include the, UK EMIR pension fund clearing exemption, CBI consultation on Liability Driven Investments, FCA consultation on UK based money market funds, BOE Contingent NBFI Repo Facility (CNRF), ESMA UCITS eligible assets directive, UK government’s Pensions Review,

and numerous engagements with the UK government, MPs and policymakers on the future of the UK defined benefit markets (including a formal response to the DWP Options for DB schemes consultation).

 

Suppliers

Vendors continue to play a key part of Insight’s overall operation.  As part of its commitment to maintaining operational resilience in its investment management activities, Insight has worked closely with key suppliers to ensure continuity and stability of services. This collaboration involved robust engagement with critical third-party providers to better understand their operational frameworks and align these with Insight’s resilience objectives.

To test and strengthen these frameworks, the Company has begun to conduct joint simulation exercises with key suppliers and will continue to do so; the scope includes scenarios replicating cyber-attacks, system outages, and market volatility. These exercises allow both parties to identify potential vulnerabilities, refine response plans, and enhance communication protocols.

Additionally, Insight regularly reviews its suppliers’ contingency plans, ensuring alignment with regulatory requirements and best practices. These measures not only bolstered resilience but also reinforced the Company’s commitment to safeguarding clients’ investments and supporting long-term stakeholder interests.

This proactive approach demonstrates Insight’s dedication to fostering strong supplier relationships while maintaining the highest standards of operational resilience.

The Insight Board has a key interest in maintaining meaningful relationships with key regulators and suppliers and therefore seeks to be kept informed on material developments with engagements with these stakeholders.

 

Shareholder Relationship

Insight is a wholly owned subsidiary within BNY. The Company maintains an open relationship with BNY, where ideas and strategic objectives are exchanged, ensuring that board members remain aligned with the strategic objectives and corporate values of its shareholder whenever appropriate. The Insight Board is committed to ensuring that due regard to the interests of its stakeholders is taken into account during the decision-making process.