July 2022
25Jul

China’s population to start to shrink before 2025: Global Times

China's population growth rate has slowed significantly and is expected to turn negative ahead of 2025, the state-backed Global Times reported, citing a senior health official. Birth data released late on Sunday showed that the number of new births in 2021 was the lowest in decades in several provinces. The number of births in the central Hunan Province fell below 500,000 for the first time in nearly 60 years, the Global Times said. Only China's southern Guangdong Province had more than...

July 25, 2022
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25Jul

The Growth In Responsible Investment Funds

The concept of socially responsible investing (SRI) has been around for hundreds of years. From the Quakers (aka, the Religious Society of Friends) prohibiting members from participating in the slave trade in 1758 to the exclusion of “sin stocks” in the 1920s to supporting the civil rights, environmental, social, and anti-war movements in the 1960s to the modern day focus on Environmental, Social, and Governance investing practices—which takes a holistic view that helps stakeholders understand how an organization manages...

July 25, 2022
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25Jul

UK. Govt urged to allow Nest to offer drawdown

The government has been told to amend legislation to allow Nest members to drawdown their pension pot, as well as extending investment pathways to trust-based schemes. The Investment and Saving Alliance made this suggestion in its response to a call for evidence on savers’ understanding of their pensions, which closed on July 25. The Department for Work and Pensions said that it wanted to understand what support and decumulation products are offered to members, along with what might be offered to...

July 25, 2022
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22Jul

UK. The effect of rising inflation and interest rates on pension schemes

The UK is currently seeing soaring inflation, with record drops in wages, and prices for goods and services sky-rocketing, resulting in a keenly-felt "cost of living" crisis. But what is the impact for UK occupational pension schemes? The consumer price index (CPI) measured inflation at 9.1% at the end of May 2022, the highest level seen since February 1982. Governments have traditionally sought to counter rising inflation by increasing interest rates, to encourage people to spend less and save more,...

July 22, 2022
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22Jul

US. Pension unfunded liabilities rising with market volatility

The markets giveth and the markets taketh away. Unfunded liabilities for state pension funds are expected to climb from $783 billion in 2021 to $1.3 trillion in 2022. The funded ratio of state pensions would fall from 85% last year to 75% in 2022. That’s according to the Reason Foundation, which states that after the market expansion of 2021 helped pensions; the rather lackluster performance of markets this year could see an average rate of return for state pensions at...

July 22, 2022
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22Jul

Caisse admits $150-million investment in bankrupt Celsius ‘raises a number of questions’

Quebec’s pension manager broke its silence about its investment in Celsius Network LLC, saying it will “take time” to resolve claims around the bankrupt cryptocurrency lender but admitted the investment didn’t pan out. Caisse de Dépôt et Placement du Québec invested $150 million in Celsius in October as part of a $400 million funding round co-led by WestCap Investment Partners LLC. Equity holders are likely to be wiped out after Celsius filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in a U.S. court,...

July 22, 2022
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22Jul

Iranian Pensioners Protest Again, Demand Full Hike In Pensions As Promised

Pensioners and retired government employees have again taken to the streets in several cities across Iran shouting anti-government slogans and demanding a full 38 percent increase in their pensions, which was promised by the Supreme Labor Council. The recent wave of protests by pensioners and retirees comes after the government announced on June 6 that it would increase the monthly incomes of non-minimum-wage retirees by 10 percent, far below a previous pledge to raise them by 38 percent plus 5.15...

July 22, 2022
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21Jul

US. Here’s How Badly the Market Crash Has Hurt Pension Funds

Public pension plans in the U.S. saw significant losses in 2022 as interest rates rose and stock markets tanked. In its annual state of pensions report, Equable Institute, a non-profit that provides public pension research and information, found that in the fiscal year ending in June 2022, the aggregate funded ratio of statewide and municipal public pensions plans dropped by 6.9 percentage points — a loss of about half of 2021’s gains. In fact, the report said this drop is...

July 21, 2022
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21Jul

Canada. Pensions need to up their climate-risk management game

As the United Kingdom sweats under record-high temperatures, pension fund managers on this side of the pond are being warned about their net-zero targets. Pension fund administrators should continue to adopt net-zero emissions targets for 2050, and have their targets vetted through third-party certification standards — such as the Science-Based Target initiative or Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net-Zero — according to Building Climate Resilience in Canada’s Pension Funds, a report released by the Smart Prosperity Institute on Wednesday. The institute...

July 21, 2022
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21Jul

Saudi’s Social Insurance office shakes-up stock market investments in 30 companies

The Saudi government agency responsible for social insurance has reorganised its investments in 30 listed companies in a bid to reap greater returns. The move came after the General Organization of Social Insurance took on all the assets of the Kingdom’s Public Pension Agency as part of a merger of the two departments, announced last June. The rejigging of the government’s holdings has been led by Hassana Investment Co, the investment arm of GOSI established in 2014, as part of a...

July 21, 2022
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