October 2018

17Oct

US. Has Connecticut Found A Solution To Underfunded Public Pensions?

Public pensions are underfunded. Okay. I know, I know. We’ve all seen this headline before. Ad nauseum. To add to that, nothing seems to improve. Another year goes by and state employee pensions are still underfunded. The numbers don’t lie: at the close of 2016, the cumulative pension funding deficit stood at $1.4 trillion—the 15thannual increase in pension debt since 2000. It’s not like the states aren’t trying to make up the shortfalls. In fact, contributions to pensions from state...

October 17, 2018
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17Oct

UK. Pension fund manager found guilty of stealing almost £1m

A pension fund manager at the UK’s Westminster City Council has been found guilty of stealing nearly £1m from an employee retirement scheme. Ian Woodall, 47, duped colleagues into approving successive payments by disguising them as investments. Over the three years from 2009, Woodall siphoned off £924,841 from the £1bn employee pension fund. Woodall then transferred the money to Swiss bank accounts and later moved it back into his British accounts, from where he used the money to refurbish his new...

October 17, 2018
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16Oct

US. Workplace Retirement Coverage Drops And The System Continues To Fail

Despite an aging workforce who are worried about retirement and despite $140 billion annual tax breaks, and despite relatively light regulation, retirement plan coverage at work (including defined benefit and 401(k)-type coverage) has declined over the last two decades. Just 40 percent of workers were covered by a retirement plan through their workplace in 2017 , 4 percentage points lower than in 2014. And retirement plan coverage has fallen in 14 out of 17 years since 2000. The lack...

October 16, 2018
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16Oct

South Africa Loses QROPS Status For Expat Pensions

South Africa has dropped off the list of financial jurisdictions offering QROPS expat offshore pensions. The latest HM Revenue & Customs QROPS List published on October 15, 2018, confirms the removal of the last QROPS based in South Africa. The ABSA Group Pension Fund was the final South African QROPS. Neither ABSA or HMRC have commented about the removal. Generally, QROPS are delisted for three main reasons: HMRC is probing the administrative or tax status of the scheme The last member has drawn down on...

October 16, 2018
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16Oct

Goldman Sachs Sees Stars Aligning for Pension PRT

Clients with defined benefit plans that are currently enjoying a bump in funded status may want to act soon to lock in those gains while market conditions remain favorable. According to Goldman Sachs Asset Management’s new white paper, “Stars Aligning for Corporate Plans to Take De-Risking Actions,” almost 25% of U.S. corporate defined benefit (DB) plans are now in a fully funded or over-funded position. As the paper’s title indicates, this means many plan sponsors are in a great position to...

October 16, 2018
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15Oct

Nigeria. Pension fund infrastructure investments rose by 600% in 20 months – Dahir-Umar

Hajia Aisha Dahir-Umar is the acting Director General of the National Pension Commission (PenCom). In this exclusive interview with Daily Trust, she says infrastructure investments through pension funds have grown by over 600 per cent, from N2.23 billion in January, 2017, to N16.07 billion as at August 31, 2018. What has been your experience running PenCom since assumed office as its acting Director General? Since assumption of duty as acting director general in April, 2017, we have remained focused on the...

October 15, 2018
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15Oct

Companies With Newly Flush Pensions See Chance to Unload the Risk

Some firms with highly funded pension plans are transferring retiree obligations to insurers U.S. corporate pensions are at the highest funded level since the financial crisis, which could lead more companies to turn over to insurers the responsibility for paying retirees, pension consultants say. Higher funding levels mean corporate sponsors get a better deal when transferring retiree obligations to insurers, so many firms are finding this to be the perfect time to transfer the risks associated with carrying pension plans. Defined-benefit pension...

October 15, 2018
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15Oct

October Rout Will Test Pensions’ Wall Street Crash Protection

Large pension funds are snapping up Wall Street protection against a market crash, but it isn’t clear the products will help limit losses in the current pullback. Worried their portfolios were too risky, public-pension managers in California, Hawaii and Rhode Island have shifted more than $25 billion over two years or so into “crisis-risk offset” strategies, while others are in the process of such moves. Typically, these tactics aim to limit investor losses by buying long-term Treasury bonds, whose price...

October 15, 2018
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12Oct

Will Blockchain Put an End to All The Freelancing Woes?

The last decade has brought about a significant change in the nature of work. More and more people are prone to the idea of freelancing, moving past the regular 9 to 5 jobs. Upwork, a prominent platform for freelancers, revealed that more workers are now choosing to work as freelancers and contractors when compared to full-time employees. It found that the freelance workforce growth is accelerating and around 36% of the US workforce is working as freelancers. Not only this, it...

October 12, 2018
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12Oct

‘Deeply concerning’: Canada pension fund invests in US immigration detention firms

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board holds $5.9m of stock in two companies profiting from Trump’s ‘zero-tolerance’ Mexico border policy Canadian politicians have expressed alarm that one of Canada’s biggest pension investment funds has increased holdings in two US private companies that run American prisons and incarcerate the majority of detained immigrants. The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), which manages $366.6bn in pension funds on behalf of some 20 million Canadian retirees, holds US$5.9m of stock in Geo Group and...

October 12, 2018
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