IPE authored a case study on how DiligenceVault eases diligence of multi-manager portfolio for USS.
Asset manager due diligence, particularly operational due diligence (ODD), has always been important to USS Investment Management (USSIM), the wholly-owned principal investment manager and adviser to the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), the UK’s largest private pension fund.
More than two-thirds of USS’s £80bn (€93bn) portfolio is invested internally, the rest being placed with
complementary external managers.
The fund maintains over 100 external-manager relationships across its portfolio, whose main components include private equity, infrastructure, property, credit, hedge funds, long-only and credit.
USSIM has been carrying out ODD for about 12 years, starting with hedge funds then, shortly afterwards, private equity funds.
Since then, it has adopted a consistent approach to external manager due diligence across asset classes, driven by a number of risk criteria, not least the increasing importance of environmental, social and governance (ESG) concerns. The breadth of its investments makes it crucial to have a structured and
thorough due-diligence methodology to monitor and protect members’ assets.
For several years, USSIM had been looking for a digitised duediligence platform to help select managers for its internally-managed portfolio.