About Us
Trustees
Policyholders
Purposeful investments
Investors
New & insight
At the heart of PIC’s investment strategy is our focus on fulfilling our purpose of paying the pensions of our policyholders. This means sourcing the secure cashflows needed to pay hundreds of thousands of pensions over the coming decades.
First, this makes us naturally cautious investors and explains the construction of a portfolio that is resilient and durable enough to withstand whatever storms blow up in the markets from year-to-year.
Second, it means that we are committed investors in areas like social housing, urban regeneration projects, the UK’s education system, and renewable energy. The more social value our assets create, the more likely they are to be good long-term investments and support our pension payments for decades to come.
PIC has been a significant investor for over a decade in areas like social housing, renewable energy and the UK’s universities. These investments, which are typically sourced privately, provide the cashflows we need to match our liabilities at maturities when publicly-available debt is simply not available. Borrowers benefit from the flexibility in funding we are able to offer, for example, with deferred drawdown and bespoke terms.
In total we have £11.4 billion invested in sustainable assets at year end. To date we have invested c. £2.8 billion in social and affordable housing and c. £1.3 billion in student accommodation.
*Market value as at 31 December 2023
Investments with significant social value
Over the past decade PIC has invested in nearly 200 projects across the UK with a combined value of nearly £12bn. Each of these projects - from social and affordable housing in Northern Ireland and Wales, to student accommodation in Scotland and the South West, infrastructure investment in the West Midlands or North East, renewable energy off the coast of Cumbria or Humberside, or urban regeneration in Liverpool and London - has a direct social and economic impact on the local communities in which they are based. To understand the footprint of PIC’s day-to-day activity at a regional level, and the social and economic value of PIC’s business in concrete terms explore the ‘Social and Economic Value of Finance’.
