April 2024
11Apr

UN PRI: U.S. pension funds face ‘mixed signals’ on sustainability

A culture of “mixed signals” in U.S. politics has contributed to an uncertain environment for pension funds when it comes to sustainability, according to a report by the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment. The UN PRI report followed research from 2020 and 2021 that found “policy, structural and market barriers” to sustainability in the U.S., U.K., and Australia. The latest work identified 10 separate priorities these jurisdictions needed to address when it came to sustainability. The U.S. pension fund system...

April 11, 2024
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11Apr

UK. Public demands government action on pensions and climate

According to a poll by responsible investment organisations ShareAction, Make My Money Matter and Finance Innovation Lab, 77% of people believe the government should do more to ensure pension holders have additional retirement savings, while 65% think ministers should encourage pension funds to tackle climate change. The organisations unveiled a five-point plan, Better pensions for all and a sustainable, productive economy: Proposals for reform, which they said would prevent the UK from “sleepwalking” into a pensions crisis. It includes increasing the...

April 11, 2024
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11Apr

Kenya. Alternative assets give pension funds options to expand investment menu

Government bonds and equities have long served as a cornerstone of pension fund portfolios. While these traditional asset classes have their merits, they represent an uncomfortably high (and growing) percentage of pension portfolios, leaving them vulnerable to concentration risk and the underperformance in these two asset classes. The Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) All Share Index, for example, fell by 27.7 percent in 2023 and bond valuations have taken a beating following recent rises in interest rates. Driven by this high concentration risk,...

April 11, 2024
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11Apr

Singapore. Redefining Retirement: Why it’s Time To Broaden Our Understanding Of What It Means To Retire

When someone says the word ‘retiree’, the image that comes to mind is a person with greying hair, perhaps wrinkling skin, and is ready to spend the rest of their days lounging at the kopitiam in the middle of the day with a newspaper and a hot cup of kopi. One would reasonably expect such a person to be in their sixties, well past the definition of a young person. But in the past two weeks, not one but two young men, clearly...

April 11, 2024
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10Apr

US. People want pensions to make a comeback. Will they?

It’s financially challenging to comfortably retire in the U.S. and many Americans work, without necessarily “wanting” to, well into their golden years. Though not being able to save enough for a secure retirement isn’t a particularly new crisis, the struggle has become more widespread in recent decades. One of the factors fueling the problem is the mass decline of the traditional pension plan. Americans want pension plans to make a comeback. According to a recent report from the National Institute for Retirement Security, 83%...

April 10, 2024
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10Apr

Caisse races toward sustainability targets but says company data to measure emissions from investments is still lacking

The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec is reaching its targets to cut carbon emissions from its $434-billion investment portfolio years ahead of schedule, but much of the hardest work is still to come. The Montreal-based pension fund manager said in an annual sustainability report released Wednesday that it has cut the intensity of carbon emissions from its investment portfolio by 59 per cent since 2017. That puts it just shy of a 60-per-cent reduction it aims to achieve...

April 10, 2024
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10Apr

U.S. private equity exit activity remains low

There were 201 private equity exits totaling $66.7 billion in the first quarter, according to data provided by PitchBook. That compares with 233 exits and $82.4 billion in volume for the fourth quarter. Exit volume was much higher in 2020 and 2021. In the second quarter of 2021, there were 431 exits and $263.3 billion in exit value. There were 65 private equity funds that raised $77.6 billion in during the first quarter. The average size was about $1.2 billion. For all...

April 10, 2024
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10Apr

The country with the most generous retirement in the world

The UK state pension notoriously pays a meagre income that barely covers the basic cost of living in retirement. Even those who receive the full £11,500 a year face a shortfall of almost £3,000 on what is required for a ‘minimum’ standard of living, according to pension industry guidelines. But are British pensioners really any worse off than their counterparts in Europe and around the world? And just how generous are state pension schemes in other countries? With the help of pensions firm...

April 10, 2024
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09Apr

Pensions giant to create UK superfund in boost for Hunt

Britain’s biggest long-term savings and retirement business is drawing up plans to launch a new superfund to back fast-growing companies in a boost for Jeremy Hunt. Phoenix, which owns insurer Standard Life, is in the early stages of creating a multibillion-pound investment vehicle that insiders say will help turbocharge investment in high-growth sectors and lift pension returns. This includes pooling cash to invest in life sciences and fintech businesses, as well as injecting long-term venture capital into unlisted companies in the...

April 9, 2024
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09Apr

Financial sector faces challenges amid climate crisis

Many of us have life insurance or retirement funds: we may allocate a portion of our salary to them each month. But we rarely know how our money is being invested. We simply trust that, when the time comes, the resources will be available to us and that the financial system will have invested our savings wisely. Still, we don’t necessarily know precisely where our money is being invested, nor do we know what regulatory framework financial institutions are operating under. At...

April 9, 2024
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