Ninety One Asset Management has secured a £1.1 billion investment mandate from Countrywide Assured, the UK insurance subsidiary of life and pensions consolidator Chesnara.
The firm, which is overseeing £159.8 billion in assets as of Dec. 31, 2025, has been appointed to run a £1.1 billion pool that includes a managed fund alongside a range of global and regional equity and fixed income strategies, according to a report from FT Adviser.
Ninety One’s UK chief executive Nigel Smith said the appointment marked the beginning of a long-term relationship with the insurer.
“We are applying the full breadth of our multi-asset, equity and fixed income expertise to deliver diversified investment returns for Countrywide Assured’s policyholders over the long term,” he said.
The managed fund at the centre of the mandate will be overseen by Ninety One’s multi-asset department, led by David Knee (pictured), working alongside portfolio managers Jason Borbora‑Sheen and Alex Holroyd‑Jones.
It is a notable early mandate for Knee, who joined Ninety One as head of multi-asset following a career of more than 30 years at M&G Investments, where he held senior investment leadership roles in fixed income and multi-asset in both the UK and South Africa. Ninety One highlighted his asset allocation and fixed income experience when it announced his appointment in 2025 as part of a wider effort to strengthen its outcomes‑oriented multi‑asset offering.
Borbora‑Sheen jointly runs several strategies at the firm, including Ninety One’s Diversified Income fund, a multi‑asset income strategy designed to provide a diversified yield with some scope for capital growth. Those capabilities are relevant for matching long‑term liabilities and generating relatively stable cashflows under Solvency II, according to the report.
The mandate comes as Ninety One expands its presence in the insurance market more broadly. In 2025 it agreed a long‑term strategic partnership with Sanlam, taking on Sanlam Investment Management’s South African business and assuming responsibility for Sanlam Investments UK portfolios, adding further scale to its liability‑aware investment platform.
Countrywide Assured is the UK life company within Chesnara, a London‑listed consolidator focused on acquiring and managing life and pensions books in the UK and continental Europe. Established in 1988, Countrywide Assured became part of Chesnara in 2004 when its life and pensions business was demerged from the Countrywide estate agency group.
Chesnara has expanded largely through acquisitions of closed books, including term assurance and unit‑linked portfolios from Canada Life UK. In early 2024 it agreed to acquire a closed portfolio of around 17,000 policies with approximately £1.5 billion of assets under management from Canada Life, to be transferred into Countrywide Assured and adding further scale to the UK division, the report said.
The group has also completed its largest deal to date with the acquisition of HSBC Life (UK) for £260 million, a transaction that closed in January 2026 and has since been rebranded as Chesnara Life. Chesnara has described the HSBC Life UK purchase as “transformational”, and has indicated it expects the deal to materially increase group earnings and cash generation over the first five years after completion.
Against that backdrop, the decision to award a £1.1 billion mandate to Ninety One underlines Countrywide Assured’s continued use of specialist third‑party managers to run significant portions of its balance sheet, while it focuses on integration, policy administration and capital management across a growing portfolio of closed books. The move illustrates how consolidators are increasingly relying on external asset managers to implement complex strategic asset allocation and income‑oriented strategies at scale.
Jackie Ronson, chief executive of Countrywide Assured, said the selection reflected the insurer’s investment priorities.
“We are pleased to be working with Ninety One for this mandate, whose strong multi-asset capabilities, investment track record and commitment to sustainable outcomes align well with our priorities. This partnership supports our focus on delivering positive value for our policyholders over the long term," Ronson said.
For Ninety One, the win comes amid heightened competition among asset managers for long‑dated insurance mandates, particularly from closed‑book consolidators and bulk annuity writers seeking to optimise asset‑liability management and capital efficiency.
Chesnara’s recent transactions, including the Canada Life UK portfolio and the completion of the HSBC Life UK acquisition, have significantly increased the volume of assets to be invested for long‑term policyholder obligations. This is contributing to a pipeline of mandates requiring diversified multi‑asset and fixed income solutions, often with sustainability and outcome‑oriented objectives to reflect regulatory expectations and UK policyholder value assessments, the report said.
