May 2021
25May

Pension-Fund Investment in Forestry

By Clark S. Binkley, Fiona Stewart and Samantha Power A forestry investment can include land suitable for growing trees, the trees themselves, or both. The trees can be part of a natural forest or one that has been established artificially by seeding or planting. Natural forest management typically has lower operating costs than plantation forests, but also a lower growth rate. Plantation forests are typically, but not always monocultures. Forestry has long provided opportunities for institutional investors – but the scope...

May 25, 2021
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06May

Time Horizon, Saving Motive and Stock Market Participation

By Yosef Bonaparte This paper shows that household’s saving motives influence key portfolio choice decision: stock market participation. We utilize a unique data set from the Survey of Consumer Finance (2019 and panel 2007-209), which report about 24 reasons for saving and group these intro 6 saving motive categories: durable, retirement, bequest, emergency, smooth and luxury. Our channel to identify how saving motives influence portfolio choice encompasses the time horizon, from the household’s view, about the planning time horizon to...

May 6, 2021
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April 2021
23Apr

Combining Flexible Asset Allocation, Sustainable Withdrawals, and Deferred Annuities to provide an Adaptive Lifelong Investing Solution

By Anran Chen, Steven Haberman, Steve Thomas In this paper, we integrate investment decisions in the post-retirement decumulation period with that of the deferred annuity purchase to provide a lifetime decumulation solution. Based on Monte Carlo simulation and historical experience, we use the Perfect Withdrawal Rate (PWR) as a tool to make recommendations on withdrawal rates and asset allocations for different levels of risk preferences. We have a few potentially important findings. First, we illustrate how cheap it is to...

April 23, 2021
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08Apr

Longevity Risk and Capital Markets: The 2019-20 Update

By David P. Blake, Andrew J. G. Cairns This Special Issue of the Insurance: Mathematics and Economics contains 16 contributions to the academic literature all dealing with longevity risk and capital markets. Draft versions of the papers were presented at Longevity 15: The Fifteenth International Longevity Risk and Capital Markets Solutions Conference that was held in Washington DC on 12-13 September 2019. It was hosted by the Pensions Institute at City, University of London. Longevity risk and related capital market solutions...

April 8, 2021
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01Apr

Preqin Markets in Focus: Latin America’s Growing Appetite for Alternative Assets

Changing demographics, policy shifts, and a growing base of highly sophisticated investors make Latin America an increasingly attractive source for private capital. Likewise, local institutional investors in Latin America are eager to put capital to work with top performing fund managers, both inside and outside the region, with an emphasis on absolute return. Where do GPs believe the best opportunities can be found? Preqin is delighted to bring Latin American alternatives markets into the spotlight with our new report, combining comprehensive...

April 1, 2021
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March 2021
19Mar

Private Markets, Infrastructure and Venture Capital in the Post-COVID Era: The Pension Perspective

By David Weeks, M. Nicolas J. Firzli This second of a series of seven papers co-authored by M. Nicolas J. Firzli and David Weeks looks at the notions of private markets – PE, VC, private debt and infrastructure – and the "quest for yields" in a low interest rates environment, which where discussed at two recent global conferences organised by the G7 Pensions Summit (G7 P7) and the Singapore Economic Forum (SEF). ESG, impact investing, renewable energy and the notion of...

March 19, 2021
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02Mar

Seeing the forest for the trees: Why pension funds should take another look at forestry as an asset class

By Fiona Stewart, Samantha Power Pension funds invest our savings over decades, so it is not surprising that they have a long history of investing in forestry assets. Swedish investors can trace the ‘roots’ of forestry investment back to the 13th century. In the modern era, pension funds began investing in forestry about 50 years ago, in the Southern United States. Since then, this modality of investment has expanded across the U.S. and Canada, as well as in Oceania, Europe,...

March 2, 2021
Articles, Blogs, ESG, Investment,
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February 2021
19Feb

Global Pension Assets Study – 2021

By Willis Tower Watson The Global Pension Assets Study covers 22 major pension markets (the P22), which now totals US$52,522 billion in pension assets and account for 80% of the GDP of these economies. The study includes an analysis of the seven largest markets (the P7) which includes Australia, Canada, Japan, Netherlands, Switzerland, UK and US and comprises 92% of total pension assets. Get the book here

February 19, 2021
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December 2020

23Dec

How an ERISA Fiduciary May Try to Save the World

By Albert Feuer On November 13, 2020, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) promulgated a final regulation regarding the investment duties of an ERISA fiduciary in selecting either direct plan investments or investment alternatives to make available to participants and beneficiaries of self-directed plans (the “Investment Duties Regulation”). The Regulation, like the proposed form of the Regulation, which provoked more than 8,000 public comments which were overwhelming critical, was intended to discourage what the DOL called ESG or sustainable...

December 23, 2020
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November 2020

27Nov

Longevity Risk and Hedging Solutions

By Guy Coughlan, David P. Blake, Richard D. MacMinn, Andrew J. G. Cairns, Kevin Dowd Longevity risk – the risk of unanticipated increases in life expectancy – has only recently been recognized as a significant global risk that has materially raised the costs of providing pensions and annuities. We first discuss historical trends in the evolution of life expectancy and then analyze the hedging solutions that have been developed for managing longevity risk. One set of solutions has come...

November 27, 2020
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