For Pensions
Allocator Desk for Pension Funds
The diligence and governance record for public and corporate pension plans.
Pension investment teams answer to boards, trustees, beneficiaries, and, in many cases, the public record. Every commitment needs a defensible record. Every board cycle needs current context. Every material signal needs to reach the right hands. Allocator Desk helps pension teams preserve the judgment behind each decision - staff views, consultant input, diligence history, board questions, obligations, and follow-ups - so the institution can show its work long after a meeting ends or a staff member leaves.
The workflow today
Pension investment offices are typically larger than other LP teams - asset-class heads, dedicated alternatives staff, and a CIO reporting to a board investment committee. An external investment consultant usually advises on manager selection. A custodian and administrator handle the back office.
Board cycles are governed by a formal IPS, asset allocation targets, and funded-status sensitivity. Manager monitoring is structured but document-heavy: quarterly letters, capital account statements, fee notices, side letters, and consultant reports flow in constantly.
When a trustee asks why a commitment was made, the answer must come from documented process - not from a long-tenured staffer's memory. When that staffer leaves, the institution must be able to show its work.
What gets lost today
Consultant and staff recommendation deltas
When the consultant recommends a fund and staff has a different view, that nuance often disappears from the formal record.
Board concerns and follow-ups
Trustee questions and requested follow-ups between meetings are easy to lose track of.
Cross-staff GP context
Multiple staff cover the same GP relationship across funds. Their notes rarely consolidate.
Pre-IC reasoning
The judgment behind a re-up decision is often verbal, not documented.
Risks that show up in diligence and governance
Defensible decision record
Trustees carry personal fiduciary obligations and need to demonstrate process, not just outcomes. Public plans may also need to respond to FOIA or open-records requests.
Funded-status sensitivity
Pacing and liquidity must hold under stressed funded-status scenarios, not just baseline assumptions.
Consultant dependency
Heavy reliance on a consultant without a parallel internal record creates a single point of failure.
Staff turnover risk
When a long-tenured staffer leaves, the institution loses years of context on every active GP relationship.
How Allocator Desk becomes the system of record
Decision record
Captures staff recommendation, consultant recommendation, dissenting views, and the IC or board vote at the moment of each commitment.
Pre-IC preparation
Brings together performance context, recent signals, obligations, open questions, and material changes before each committee or board cycle.
Obligations tracking
Holds every reporting commitment, side letter term, fee notice, and capital call obligation across the portfolio in one searchable place.
Audit and records bundles
Read-only, expiring document and decision packages for trustees, external auditors, or records requests.
Shared coverage and signals
Material GP touchpoints captured once and shared team-wide, so any staff member can brief the board accurately.
Example fields and workflows tracked
- Staff and consultant recommendation comparison per commitment
- Trustee vote record, dissents, and follow-up items
- Funded-status sensitivity inputs per asset class
- IPS compliance flag per commitment
- Public records or audit response preparation log
- Cross-staff coverage notes per manager
- Side letter terms, MFN elections, and fee structure
Common questions
Our consultant tracks all of this.
Your consultant tracks what their workflow needs. The plan needs its own record - one that survives consultant transitions and records requests.
We have a Burgiss or similar back-office system.
Burgiss handles performance and accounting data. Allocator Desk handles the diligence and judgment layer - the why behind the numbers.
Is this replacing our consultant, custodian, or performance system?
No. Allocator Desk sits beside those systems as the diligence and decision record - the place where staff judgment, consultant input, governance context, and manager history come together.