Pendia Associates and Russell Link up to Offer "Best in Class" Asset Management Solutions in Switzerland (Russell.com)

Pendia Associates and Russell Link up to Offer "Best in Class" Asset Management Solutions in Switzerland

Pendia Associates and Frank Russell Company today announced an alliance to bring Russell's asset management solutions to Swiss institutional investors. Pendia Associates, one of the leading Swiss consulting firms, will complete their range of services by providing access to the full range of Russell multi-style, multi-manager solutions.

Swiss institutions, which already benefit from the extensive consulting resources of Pendia, stand to gain from access to the leading global manager research capability via Russell's multi-manager funds. Responsibility and accountability for active asset manager selection and investment performance will be handled by Russell's team of dedicated professionals. By delegating asset manager selection and monitoring, the client and Pendia are better placed to focus on the critical and increasingly complex issues of strategic financial management and asset allocation policy.

Commenting for Pendia, Mike McShee, Senior Partner said:

"We have built a commanding position in the general area of pension consulting with a strong concentration in the area of allocation strategy development. We believe that while sound strategy development is imperative for an institution, it is equally important to find the means of excellence in implementing the strategy.

At Pendia, we do not have a team of analysts to handle in-depth manager research on a continuous basis, and so we have been limited in our capacity to offer implementation services to our clients.

The Russell manager research team is certainly the largest in the world, and has the widest global reach. The global reach is imperative as allocation strategy and the universe of possible managers is distributed all over the world.

The combination of Russell's global resources for implementing and managing the investment process, together with Pendia's pension and investment strategic consulting capacity, produces an unequalled resource for the Swiss investor.

Going Forward, Pendia is looking to offer a fully outsourced solution to Swiss pension fund clients which will include administration, accounting, actuarial services and member communications, coupled with Russell's investment solutions."

Jon Bailie, Managing Director, Institutional Investment Services, at Russell responded: "We're very much looking forward to working with Pendia to provide the optimal investment management solutions for its Swiss clients. It is highly complimentary to have an endorsement of Russell's approach and products from a company of Pendia's calibre. Russell opened a Swiss office at the beginning of this year and this agreement marks a significant step forward for our business in this region."

Pendia Associates. Pendia is a Swiss pension and employee benefit consulting firm which recently acquired the Swiss business of Buck Heissmann. The combination of the two businesses produces a substantial firm in the business of consulting and administrative/operating services and IT solutions in the Pension Fund, Investment, Insurance and Employee Benefits area. Pendia has two locations; in Nyon (close to Geneva) and Zürich, and is the Swiss associate of Buck Heissmann International. With a staff of 50 in the Nyon and Zürich offices, Pendia is one of the largest providers of services to Swiss pension funds.

Frank Russell Company, a global investment services firm, provides multi-manager investment products and services in more than 35 countries. Russell manages over $76 billion in assets, of which approximately $16 billion is managed from Europe, and advises clients representing more than $1,800 billion worldwide. Founded in 1936, Russell is a subsidiary of Northwestern Mutual and is headquartered in Tacoma, Washington, with additional offices in New York, Toronto, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Geneva, Madrid, Singapore, Sydney, Auckland, Tokyo and Johannesburg. Frank Russell Company Limited is regulated by FSA.