After 23 minutes of discussing sport and in particular the opportunities available to go to watch cricket and other freebies, I was tempted to switch off this podcast. But I didn’t and I am glad I didn’t because it told me what I suspected in the hour that followed;  that Smart (and a lot of the smaller master trusts) really do need to put in a good shift between now and the end of the decade if we are to have jobs for the likes of James Lawrence who is in charge of investment now that Paul Bucksey has left.

The difficulty is that Smart are not big enough to do deals on their own and have to pair with the likes of JP Morgan, Natixis and others to wring a little out of indexation and use other’s funds to get some active action.  This is Smart having to compete with four rivals with more than £25bn under management who can make more from the markets directly.

Clearly there was a lot of history around the Connect failure involving Nico who opens up a little in this podcast. It seems the FCA were involved (as well as Smart Founder and Connect Founder and now Cushon Trustee Darren Agombar).

Paul Bucksey is back as a trustee having been CIO. Martin Freeman – last year strategic platform Director is gone. Darren Philip has moved on to start his own consultancy and Smart is going to have to find a new Chair as Andy Cheseldine is retiring later this year. It is obvious that Smart is a highly

What is not obvious is the route to growth at a time when insurers can fall back on a fragmented GPP book and consultants pick up clients looking to consolidate. It would be ironic if Smart was purchased by one of the big consultants but not surprising.

The insurance brokers such as Howden and Aon and Mercer and WTW are now moving into pension management through consolidation, only Howden are yet to have a master trust. If banks are buying in to pensions and buying out staff schemes using in house master trusts, how long has NatWest’s DC scheme to survive with NatWest Cushon in the same position.

Smart’s new office – an impressive statement

Also circling must be Royal London who have the assets under management but all in GPPs. Smart are looking a technology company with growth around the world but a pension scheme in the UK looking vulnerable. I did not hear much in this 83 minute podcast that made me confident that it will remain “independent”.

I’d have been asking some questions about all this had this been a webinar!

I listen to these pods to pick up alternative views to those expressed in webcasts run by Pension PlayPen and the blogs that are going out , twenty a week. Here is the list of discussions on this week’s pod

• what’s going on in the world and what it means for investment;

• Baroness Altmann’s ideas for linking tax relief to investing in the UK;

• Smart’s investment in green bonds and its approach to zero cost investing;

• the Pension Schemes Bill and the challenges of balancing long-term societal benefits with financial returns in pension investments;

• CDC and decumulation;

I think this is broadly aligned with what is covered (I do not delve into the wold of “net zero”)  but it’s good to see that we are both looking at investment – though in different ways. But we aren’t really digging into pensions from DC pots – yet!

My other chief reason  for listening in this week was to find out about CDC and decumulation and plans being considered by Smart. It would be good to hear more and with the good sense that Nico demands.