Trafalgar House Pensions Trust

Trafalgar House Pensions Trust

The Trafalgar House Pensions Trust is a legacy corporate defined-benefit pension scheme originally sponsored by the Trafalgar House engineering and construction conglomerate. The plan was later transferred to Kvaerner after its acquisition of Trafalgar House in 1996, and then to a rump entity known as TH Global, which provided cash payments to the trust until 2012. Since the sponsor's exit, the trust has operated as a self-sufficient asset owner, managed by a board of trustees including Baroness Ros Altmann, the former UK Pensions Minister appointed to the board in 2007. The trust deploys capital across two distinct portfolios. The liability-matching portfolio is concentrated in UK fixed income and long-dated gilts, designed to hedge the pension promises owed to former Trafalgar House employees. The growth asset portfolio invests globally, with public-record commitments to real estate, infrastructure, and private credit strategies. Cardano, the London-based investment advisory and fiduciary management firm, acts as investment adviser to the trust; Cardano CEO Kerrin Rosenberg serves on the trust's investment committee, anchoring the governance relationship. The scheme's administration is handled by Trafalgar House Pensions Administration Limited, led by director Garry Wake. The administrator provides pension management services not only to the trust but also to external third-party schemes. While total assets under management are not publicly disclosed, the trust's status as a closed, maturing single-employer scheme with no active sponsor makes its liability-driven investment posture a defining operational feature. Structurally, THPT is a closed corporate pension trust without a sponsoring employer — an arrangement that places it in a small minority of UK defined-benefit schemes. Without a corporate parent to backstop deficits, the investment committee must fully fund accrued benefits through asset returns alone. That stand-alone liability posture shapes every allocation decision, making capital preservation and cashflow matching as critical as the growth mandate.