January 2022
24Jan

Companies’ U.S. Pension Plans Are More Overfunded Than They Have Been in Years

Companies’ U.S. pension plans are more overfunded than they have been in years amid strong equity markets. Those surpluses will likely go up further if long-term corporate bond yields continue to rise, as many of these plans use those yields to value their liabilities. That could prompt finance chiefs to revise their pension strategies. An estimated 40 of the largest 100 U.S. pension plans were funded at 100% or more in 2021, the most since 2007, and up from 16 in...

January 24, 2022
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24Jan

UK university pension scheme to add climate focus to 5 billion stg of AUM

Britain's Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) will add a climate focus to 5 billion pounds ($6.77 billion) of its assets under management to meet climate targets, it said on Monday. The climate focus will initially reduce emissions compared to the broad equity market by at least 30%, and further cut its carbon intensity by 7% each following year, USS said in a statement. USS, which has 82 billion pounds in total assets under management and is one of Britain's biggest pension schemes,...

January 24, 2022
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24Jan

Investors need to create own targets for China

Asset owners need to actively determine what their exposures to China's fast-growing equity universe should be, rather than relying on emerging markets benchmark indexes providing limited access now to some of the mainland's most compelling alpha and diversification opportunities, according to Acadian Asset Management LLC. The $113 billion Boston-based quant manager's Dec. 16 paper, "Polarizing Views: China's Impact on Emerging Markets Investing," calls on institutional investors to review and revamp their allocations to China, unconstrained by benchmark weights, based on...

January 24, 2022
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21Jan

U.S. Pension Funds Hold Clue to Relief for Slumping Treasuries

U.S. pension funds may be primed to take advantage of higher yields in global bonds and could put a floor on the market’s slump. Pension funding versus liabilities was close to 100% at the end of 2021, for the first time since the financial crisis, according to investment advisory firm Milliman, based on data from 100 U.S. public companies sponsoring the largest defined benefit pension plans. Such funds could be “keen to lock in” that status and turn to the...

January 21, 2022
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21Jan

UK. MPs criticise ‘shameful’ underpaying of state pensions

The long-term underpayment of thousands of state pensioners, mainly widows, divorcees and women who rely on their husband’s pension contributions for some of their pension, is a “shameful shambles”, according to the public spending watchdog. About 134,000 people have had their state pension underpaid to the tune of £1bn, according to a Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) estimate. The vast majority of those affected are women who should have had their pension topped up when their husband retired even if...

January 21, 2022
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21Jan

Canada. ESG challenges: talent shortage and lack of consistent standards

Just as awareness and support is accelerating for environmental, social, governance (ESG) investing, with retirement systems worldwide such as the Canadian pension system attracting attention for their strategies, an issue has arisen – a shortage of financial professionals with sustainable finance skills. Pension funds and investment managers are among the financial services organizations affected by the talent shortage, says a recent report from Toronto Finance International (TFI) and Deloitte. But banks and insurance companies are affected as well. How soon will...

January 21, 2022
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21Jan

Germany wants to attract 400,000 skilled workers from abroad each year

Germany's new coalition government wants to attract 400,000 qualified workers from abroad each year to tackle both a demographic imbalance and labour shortages in key sectors that risk undermining the recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. "The shortage of skilled workers has become so serious by now that it is dramatically slowing down our economy," Christian Duerr, parliamentary leader of the co-governing Free Democrats (FDP), told business magazine WirtschaftsWoche. "We can only get the problem of an ageing workforce under control with...

January 21, 2022
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21Jan

US. Pension funds pin their hopes on inflation

America’s biggest private sector pension plans did so badly last year that they earned barely half as much as the traditional low-risk, low-fee balanced portfolio of stocks and bonds. So report international pension consultants Milliman & Co. It says something about the usual performance of U.S. company pension plans that Milliman calls this 2021 result a “win.” (On the bright side, though, company pensions still did much better than Social Security, whose investments effectively lost money.) The 100 biggest private sector pension plans...

January 21, 2022
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20Jan

Ghana. NPRA to prosecute firms that refuse to pay 2-tier contribution for employees

The Manager of the National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA) for the Bono, Bono East and Ahafo Region, William Ohene-Adjei, has indicated that his outfit is ready to prosecute institutions that refuse to pay the tier two contribution of their employees. Mr. Ohene-Adjei gave the indication during a sensitisation programme in Sunyani for the leadership of Anglican Dioceses of Sunyani on the need for people in the informal sector to embrace the 3-tier pension scheme. He urged the leadership of the church...

January 20, 2022
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20Jan

Australian Pension Seeks to Double Its Assets to $108 Billion by 2025

Australia’s Construction & Building Unions Superannuation Fund expects to double assets to A$150 billion ($108 billion) in three years by snapping up rivals as regulator scrutiny forces smaller firms to exit. The Melbourne-based fund is talking to like-minded firms which will help it hit the target “in a couple years,” the A$68 billion fund’s Chairman Wayne Swan said in an interview Wednesday. “We don’t seek to grow for growth’s sake,” he said. “We seek to grow so we can deliver a...

January 20, 2022
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