November 2017

Yield-Starved U.K. Pension Funds Jump on Private Debt Bandwagon

A newly created credit fund carved out jointly by two U.K. local government pension authorities plans to earmark almost half of its assets for investments in direct lending. The Local Pensions Partnership, formed by pooling the funds of local government retirement funds in London and Lancashire County, will plow approximately 45 percent of its 1.3 billion pound ($1.7 billion) capital into direct lending, according to a person familiar with the matter, who is not authorized to speak publicly and asked...

British Insurer Legal & General to Launch Japan Operation-CEO

British’s third-largest insurer, Legal & General (LGEN.L), is launching an operation in Japan to offer company pension scheme insurance and investment management, Chief Executive Nigel Wilson said on Thursday. The move by L&G comes as European peers such as Allianz (ALVG.DE) and Aviva (AV.L) have scaled back from other Asian markets such as Taiwan. The $21 billion (16.09 billion pounds) company, which manages 1 trillion pounds in assets in its fund arm, has sold a number of its European businesses in...

OECD: Australian retirement most exposed to share risk but returns not stellar

Australian superannuation funds have a much higher exposure to volatile share markets than almost any comparable country without earning higher returns, according to new figures. The OECD’s annual Pension Markets in Focus report has found that Australia’s pension (superannuation) system had 51 per cent of its assets in shares in June 2016, more than twice the weighting of Canada, with 23 per cent. The US had 31 per cent, the UK 14 per cent and Denmark 22 per cent. Conversely, Australian pension...

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Sells 364,200 Shares of Bank of Nova Scotia (The) (BNS)

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board cut its position in shares of Bank of Nova Scotia (The) (NYSE:BNS) (TSE:BNS) by 15.7% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 1,948,274 shares of the bank’s stock after selling 364,200 shares during the quarter. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board owned approximately 0.16% of Bank of Nova Scotia (The) worth $124,936,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. Several other institutional investors...

Chile. Gobierno hace uso del Fondo de Reserva de Pensiones por primera vez y retira US$ 314 mills.

Por primera vez desde la publicación de la Ley de Responsabilidad Fiscal, creada en 2006, el Gobierno hizo uso del Fondo de Reserva de Pensiones (FRP). La normativa autoriza la utilización de dichos recursos de forma gradual luego de una década y para complementar el financiamiento de las pensiones solidarias que paga el Estado al 60% de la población más vulnerable. A septiembre de este año, los dineros acumulados en el FRP ascienden a US$ 9.799,75 millones, y el retiro...

México. El sistema de pensiones de Oaxaca colapsará en 6 años

En septiembre ingresaron 54 millones de pesos al Fondo de Pensiones del Gobierno del Estado por cuotas y aportaciones, 5.9 por ciento más que los 50.9 millones de pesos captados en enero de este año. Sin embargo, la nómina de pensionados en enero pasó de 43.2 millones a 49 millones en septiembre pasado; es decir un crecimiento de 14.7 por ciento, más del doble del registrado en el crecimiento porcentual del monto de los ingresos. Por ese comportamiento, el Fondo de...

El Salvador. A partir del 15 de noviembre te descontarán más en cotización AFP

A partir del 15 de noviembre, los salvadoreños comenzaran a cotizar al fondo de ahorro para pensiones, el equivalente al 15 % de su salario, y no el 13 % como estaban acostumbrados. Los afiliados cotizantes al Sistema de Ahorro para Pensiones (SAP) verán el cambio en el porcentaje descontado para las Administradoras de Fondos de Pensiones (AFP) en las boletas de pago de este mismo mes, confirmó la Asociación Salvadoreña de AFP (Asafondos). ¿Por qué? La reforma a la ley...

A Nobel Prize-Winning Theory Is Enriching a $7.5 Billion Manager

Human beings tend to have biases. Knowing how to read those can make you very rich. During a recent interview in Oslo, Stacey Nutt, the chief executive officer of asset management firm ClariVest Asset Management LLC talked about the way behavioral economics is helping his portfolio managers beat the market. Nutt says the trick is to go for “under-appreciated fundamental trends.” “Fundamental movement but not a lot of excitement. That’s an interesting combination for us,” he said in the Norwegian capital...

Here’s How The Gender Gap Applies To Retirement

In its 2016 study “Shortchanged in Retirement,” The National Institute on Retirement Security explored financial hardships facing employed women, women approaching retirement and retired women. Co-authored by Manager of Research Jennifer Brown, the study identified that women are much more likely to face poverty in retirement than their male counterparts. The analysis attributes the gender disparity to what it calls the dysfunctional “three-legged stool” of middle class retirement: social security, a pension and personal retirement savings. “After decades of restructuring...

Ørsted to sell 50% of Walney Extension to Danish pension funds

Danish utility Ørsted A/S (CPH:ORSTED), formerly Dong Energy A/S, announced today it has inked a deal to sell a 50% stake in the 659-MW Walney Extension offshore wind project to pension funds PKA and PFA. Each of the two Danish pension funds will acquire a 25% stake in the project and, together, they are committing to fund 50% of the payments under the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the entire wind park, including the transmission assets. The total...