It is hard not to feel sorry for SEI. The difference between what they’ve earned their savers compared with what L&G and NOW (the bottom DC workplace “pensions”) have returned is enormous.

I can see why Torsten Bell reckons herding has its advantages. So long as the herding is around SEI and not around those at the bottom, no one would moan about VFM.

The frustration is obvious in this post

But here’s the hard bit; despite delivering the biggest pots, SEI’s mastertrust is not getting offered fresh mandates; it’s considered too small to continue beyond 2030 when it may be judged not at scale.

If DC pension VFM were  to be judged solely by performance, then SEI would be home and hosed, but it is not. SEI is not considered to able to deliver what it could do if consolidated into another DC scheme.

SEI’s mastertrust is itself a consolidation of savers in Capita’s Atlas pension, XPS’ Nation’s pension and the employers SEI has attracted to it as an asset manager. It is ironic that a consolidator could be consolidated but that is how the commercial world works.