Mark Evans

Trustee Director

Contact Information

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With over 25 years’ pensions experience, Mark is a natural collaborator. He has worked with numerous trustee boards and sponsors to help them negotiate challenges from corporate restructuring to complex Defined Benefit (DB) funding negotiations.

With Defined Contribution (DC) pension and wider employee benefits experience, he is also comfortable with a huge range of schemes and circumstances.

Mark’s current schemes range in size from less than £50m to £1bn+, sponsored by a wide variety of organisations, from large multinational corporations and groups with multiple schemes, in-house resources, to universities, charities, and family-run businesses.

Some of the schemes Mark works with are, or have been, subject to regulatory intervention. This typically results from covenant or funding concerns. Having advised sponsoring employers as well as trustee boards, he understands the perspective and needs of both. This experience is invaluable in building the trust necessary to achieve pragmatic but effective outcomes for all stakeholders. His focus is always on establishing and then moving the scheme towards its strategic objective in a practical, cost-effective way.

Mark is a fully accredited trustee with the Association of Professional Pension Trustees (APPT).

  • Adviser review
  • Data and benefit rectification projects
  • Delivering Governance services
  • Difficult Valuation Exercises
  • Investment strategy reviews
  • New scheme establishment
  • Repairing/rebuilding trustee relationships
  • Scheme Closures
  • Scheme Mergers and demerger
  • Scheme/sponsor under TPR investigation
  • Support to DB/Hybrid schemes
  • Support to large / complex schemes
  • Working to agree long term objectives

Completed a Scheme’s £484m buy-in with Just Group in 2022, insuring the benefits of around 3,000 pensioners and 1,800 deferred members.

Completed a strategic review for a university scheme which had been impacted by COVID-19 and increased funding and security requirements of the USS. The review looked at the funding and investment strategy. It resulted in the scheme moving to a more stable position, protecting the funding level, and reduced both risk and ongoing costs.

The UK sponsor of another scheme, with a German parent, had been an unexpected beneficiary of the pandemic. Mark worked with the UK business leaders to seize this opportunity, presenting a business case to the parent to achieve buy-out within a short but realistic timescale.

Mending a ‘broken’ relationship created by a problematic previous valuation process for a c£1bn scheme, re-establishing trust between the trustees and UK company, allowing a wider pensions dialogue to be established with the overseas parent.

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