In an umbrella fund there are several participating employers who enjoy more or less the same benefits and the fund is managed by professional trustees.
Instead of a business having its own pension fund, a number of businesses join an umbrella fund and all employees' retirement savings are invested and administered jointly.
The costs to administrators of running local umbrella funds, which pool together the retirement savings of different businesses, are still considerably higher than international benchmarks.
They are mostly commonly used in the formation of collective investment schemes as umbrella funds and for the formation of captive insurance companies (typically a variation of a rent-a-captive).
