London, 29 September 2026: PIMCO, a global leader in active fixed income with expertise across public and private markets, today announced the introduction of its Retirement Income Models to UK financial advisers, providing them with access to a dedicated investment framework informed by more than a decade of retirement income research and experience in the U.S.
With the number of UK pensioners expected to increase by 14% by 2035Footnote1, the launch comes at a time when more people move from accumulating wealth to drawing an income from it, creating a different set of challenges for advisers and their clients. Increasing regulatory focus is also reinforcing the need for dedicated retirement approaches that recognise the distinct challenges clients face in decumulation.
According to PIMCO, this area of the market is therefore ripe for innovation, with retirement portfolios needing to balance dependable income with longer-term growth, while navigating risks around sequencing, longevity, inflation and market volatility.
"Retirement income is becoming the next frontier of financial advice," said Simon Hillenbrand, Head of Global Wealth Management - UK at PIMCO. "For decades, advisers have focused on helping clients build wealth. Increasingly, the challenge is how to convert that wealth into an income that can support them through potentially decades of retirement. We believe this requires a distinct investment approach, combining disciplined portfolio construction with a clear understanding of risks that grow in importance once clients start drawing an income."
Over the past decade, PIMCO has undertaken extensive research into retirement investing and decumulation, exploring areas such as sustainable withdrawal rates, asset allocation, sequencing risk and spending flexibility. The research highlights that retirement outcomes can be influenced by more than investment returns alone. Starting portfolio yields, the sequence in which returns are experienced - particularly during the early years of retirement - and flexibility around withdrawals can all play an important role.
This work, combined with experience from PIMCO's flagship income investing franchise and proprietary portfolio analytics, has helped shape PIMCO’s approach to retirement income in the U.S., and now provides the foundation for the solutions being introduced to UK.
PIMCO has developed three multi-manager Retirement Income Models, designed to give UK financial advisers a practical investment framework for balancing income, long-term growth potential and risk:
- Conservative: focused primarily on generating income while seeking to preserve capital.
- Balanced: seeking to balance dependable income with longer-term capital growth.
- Moderate Growth: designed for clients able to accept greater equity exposure in pursuit of higher long-term growth potential.
Together, the models provide advisers with a range of retirement income solutions, combining PIMCO's active fixed income expertise with varying levels of equity exposure to help meet clients' objectives and needs.
“Retirement is fundamentally different from accumulating wealth. We see a compelling opportunity to help UK advisers strengthen their retirement propositions by bringing what we have learnt in the U.S. to the UK,” added Hillenbrand. “Our Retirement Income Models are designed to give advisers access to a dedicated investment framework, balancing the need for income with the need for capital to keep working throughout retirement. They also reflect our long-standing conviction that active management can play a particularly important role in fixed income markets, where structural inefficiencies may create opportunities for active managers.”
PIMCO intends to make its Retirement Income Models available through a select number of strategic partnerships across the UK adviser market. The model portfolios will give advisers access to asset allocation and investment insights informed by PIMCO’s retirement research and broader investment expertise, while allowing advisers and their partners to determine how they are incorporated within their own retirement propositions for individual clients.
About PIMCO
PIMCO is a global leader in active fixed income with deep expertise across public and private markets. We invest our clients’ capital across a range of fixed income and credit opportunities, drawing upon our decades of experience navigating complex debt markets. Our flexible capital base and deep relationships with issuers have helped us become one of the world’s largest providers of traditional and nontraditional solutions for companies that need financing and investors who seek strong risk-adjusted returns.
1 ICAEW Insights, 31 January 2025 Return to content
