RELX Defined Benefit Plans Master Trust

The Master Trust is a separate legal entity that pools the assets of several defined benefit pension schemes sponsored by RELX PLC and its subsidiaries. While RELX PLC is the sponsoring employer, the trustee board holds independent fiduciary responsibility for investment decisions and member outcomes. The trust operates under authorization from The Pensions Regulator.

A trustee board with independent fiduciary responsibility governs the Master Trust, typically advised by an investment committee. Day-to-day asset management is outsourced to external managers across asset classes. The names of individual trustees and investment committee members are not publicly disclosed at the trust level, though they are communicated directly to scheme members.

RELX Group's consolidated defined benefit pension obligations totalled approximately £4.6 billion as of December 2023 (per RELX Annual Report, 2023). Not all of these liabilities may sit within the Master Trust structure, and the exact Master Trust AUM is not separately disclosed. UK pension regulation requires triennial actuarial valuations, but these are not always made public.

Like most mature UK defined benefit schemes, the Master Trust is expected to employ a significant liability-driven investment framework using gilts, swaps, and investment-grade credit to match inflation-linked and interest-rate-sensitive liabilities. The exact hedging ratio and LDI manager lineup are not publicly disclosed. The scheme's maturity, shaped by RELX's long history of acquisitions, implies a liability profile weighted toward pensioner members.

Large UK defined benefit schemes typically allocate to private markets including infrastructure, real estate, and private credit alongside traditional asset classes. The Master Trust's specific alternative asset exposure is not publicly broken out, but the trustee's fiduciary duty to diversify and match long-dated liabilities makes alternative assets a standard component of portfolios of this scale.