Independent expertise for better retirement outcomes.

Founding & early innovation

The company was originally founded in 1996 by actuaries Mark Barge and David Lloyd with a clear mission: to bring institution-grade financial engineering into the retail market. In its early years, Intersolve designed structured products in partnership with investment banks, employing sophisticated derivative techniques that were rarely available to individual investors at the time. This work led to the development of hedging methodologies later used by Deutsche Bank in the implementation of its pension bulk buyout programme.

Institutional expansion

As the business expanded, Intersolve established a dedicated division providing ongoing valuations of exotic financial instruments to a wide range of institutional clients. The company also formed a 50/50 joint venture with F&C Investment Management, called Cerebus, tasked with designing and distributing complex investment structures for unit trusts, OEICs and investment managers. F&C acquired the venture after two successful years.

Product innovation

Innovation has always been central to Intersolve's identity. We created CashCade, a unique deposit-linked equity bond, and launched it through a new partnership with Meteor Asset Management. We invented the Index Mortgage, a completely new mortgage structure, and built a dedicated company to develop and market the product, recruiting the former Deputy Chief Executive of HBOS as chairman.

Pensions innovation

In pensions, Intersolve designed the UK's first Defined Benefit Personal Pension, including a sophisticated investment strategy capable of meeting the demands of the emerging Solvency II regime. Working closely with Canada Life's senior management, actuarial teams and project specialists, we successfully brought this product to market. More recently, we developed a "Third Way" retirement income solution to meet the growing global demand for durable, flexible decumulation strategies.

Decumulation research programme

In 2018, Intersolve began a multi-year research programme aimed at improving the certainty of outcomes for members of defined benefit pension schemes. This work produced several breakthroughs in modelling techniques and spending strategies, centred on the three core goals of successful pension decumulation:

• Maximising spending, particularly in the early years when retirees can most enjoy it.
• Reducing to near zero the probability of funds being exhausted before a specified age.
• Ensuring that all intended resources are used over the retiree's lifetime so that nothing is wasted.

Service for platforms

In the second half of 2026, Intersolve launched its service for platforms, providing a streamlined, adviser-friendly portal for workplace pension and SIPP platform providers. This service brings our modelling, analytics and retirement-income expertise directly into the hands of advisers and clients.