Pensions Investment Analyst

at  ESB

Vacancy Number: 26191
Business
Job Type: Full-time
ESB is a purpose led company striving to create a brighter future for the customers and communities we serve, leading the transition to reliable, affordable, low-carbon energy. Today, we operate one of the most progressive electricity systems in the world, with activities spanning electricity generation, transmission, distribution and supply in Ireland, Northern Ireland and Great Britain, and an international energy consulting business.
With almost 8,000 employees we invested €1bn in infrastructure last year, contributed over €2bn to the economies we operate in and distributed over €2m across a range of community initiatives. This requires us to bring the best of our capabilities together to deliver innovative and value-driven solutions that enable our customers to live low-carbon lives. ESB strives to foster an effective and inclusive culture where people engage, challenge and feel connected to our purpose, colleagues, customers and community.

POSITION DESCRIPTION

The ESB Defined Benefit and Defined Contribution pension schemes are two of the largest occupational pension schemes in Ireland. The Trustees are responsible for overseeing all aspects of the Fund’s investment policy and have implemented a specialist investment structure with investments managed externally by Irish and International investment management companies.
The Trustees are supported in their work by the ESB Pensions Office including in-house Pensions Chief Investment Officer and a fund accounting team. An opportunity now exists for an Investment Analyst reporting to the Pensions CIO.

Working in this team environment you will be a key person in relation to all aspects of the investment cycle, key tasks including:

• Work with the Trustees, CIO, and advisors in designing and implementing the overall investment strategy and various de-risking strategies. This also involves undertaking regular reviews to ensure the Schemes are getting good value for money
• Overseeing the regulatory compliance of the DB Scheme with a focus on EMIR, ECB and EIOPA data, SRD2 and SFDR. Also ensuring that all the new IORP investing processes and reporting are designed, implemented, and regularly reviewed
• Lead the various pension scheme’s reporting in terms of ESG and build and maintain a database for tracking carbon statistics, fossil fuel exposures and investment managers’ ESG, voting and engagement policies
• Work with the Pensions CIO and advisers in designing and reviewing liability management techniques along with how they might develop over time
• Monitor of key investment return and risk statistics for the various pension schemes (including overall solvency) along with individual investment managers. This will also include working with external manager ratings systems and building up a traffic light system to track and evaluate investment manager ratings
• A thorough and detailed understanding of a wide number of investment markets and provide input into and present investment papers presented to the Trustees
• Monitoring of counterparty exposures across all the Scheme’s investment funds
• A working understanding of the use of actuarial calculations and solvency measures
• Overseeing the liquidity risk management by producing short and long term cashflow forecasts and managing the budgeting process for the DB trustees
• Taking a key role in the provision of reporting for Trustees
• Working alongside the CIO in being the main point of contact for over 40 Investment Managers, Consultants, Custodians, and other third-party advisors. The role will also involve the overseeing the procurement process of same
• Being the main point of contact between the fund accounting and investment team to ensure the annual report and audit are satisfactorily completed
• Overseeing the investment governance process
• Support the tax reclaim process with the custodian, Revenue, and tax advisors
• Be a key inputter into the ESB Pensions’ investment communication framework in terms of booklet designs where it relates to investments along with ensuring that information is clearly presented and easily to understand