February 2024

Is This Big Risk Lurking in Your Social Security Claiming Math?

By: John Manganaro     ThinkAdvisor published the latest in an ongoing series of Social Security claiming case studies earlier this month, finding the optimal claiming scenario for the sample married couple at hand would be to draw their benefits earlier than the maximum claiming age of 70. That result, based mainly on the fact that the couple had a highly uneven earnings history and a small but meaningful gap in longevity expectations, surprised some readers, and it sparked a number of insightful discussions with both...

Repensar la desigualdad en Latinoamérica

Por: ANA MARIA IBÁÑEZ Casi todo el mundo está de acuerdo en que la distribución desigual del ingreso, la riqueza y las oportunidades en América Latina y el Caribe (ALC) ha obstaculizado los esfuerzos por construir sociedades cohesivas y democracias sólidas, además de frustrar las ambiciones de los jóvenes. Pero los esfuerzos por cerrar la brecha entre ricos y pobres han sido insuficientes y el progreso se ha estancado. Los gobiernos necesitan urgentemente mejores pruebas sobre cómo remediar este problema de...

South Africa. GEPF warns of fake letters with respect to pension payments

By Staff Reporter   Scammers are trying to defraud government workers of their pension money via SMS by encouraging them to resign rather than retire, the Government Employees Pension Fund (GEPF) has warned. GEPF is the largest pension fund in Africa with more than 1.2 million active members and about 500 000 pensioners and beneficiaries. The fund is responsible for more than R2.3 trillion in assets under its management. GEPF said it was recently made aware of fraudulent letters being sent to its...

Canadian funds tapping into investment opportunities in Brazil

By PALASH GHOSH   Canadian pension funds have been investing in Brazil, a huge country that boasts a growing $2.1 trillion economy, the largest such economy in Latin America and an especially attractive target for infrastructure and energy investments, as evidenced by the recent agreement by Caisse de Depot et Placement du Québec to increase its stake in a natural gas transmission firm. Ironically, Brazil jumped two spots last year to surpass Canada itself as the globe's ninth biggest economy, the International Monetary...

January 2024

Where Pension Incentive Pay Makes Sense — and Doesn’t

By Girard Miller To continue a theme I introduced in my last column, the compensation structures for public pension professionals will need a tune-up if we expect them to deliver superior investment returns. The first steps toward performance improvement don’t require a lot of money — just a willingness to bump up the salaries of those with proven investment IQs as demonstrated through relevant credentialing programs. Beyond that, however, it gets much trickier for the plans seeking to deliver optimal performance in...

December 2023

UK. Good News — The UK’s Pensions Black Hole Is No More

By John Stepek   Welcome to Money Distilled. I’m John Stepek. Every week day I look at the biggest stories in markets and economics, and explain what it all means for your money. The good news on UK corporate pensions Merryn talks to Kokou Agbo-Bloua, global head of economics, cross-asset and quant research about the outlook for 2024, and why he thinks a slowdown in the US is inevitable. But what should you buy? There was a story over on our Markets Live blog yesterday that caught my eye, as I’d missed...

November 2023

México. Las brechas económicas de género

Por Kathia Ramos La desigualdad de género se manifiesta en aspectos económicos, financieros, políticos y sociales. A modo de ejemplo está el techo de cristal, la reducida representación en posiciones de liderazgo, la inequidad en acceso a la educación y a los servicios de salud, solo por mencionar algunos. La atención económica y financiera del tema radica en que la desigualdad perpetúa la vulnerabilidad económica y la pobreza, obstaculizando el desarrollo económico. Esto podemos verlo por dos vías, la primera es...

August 2023

Canada is burning, so why is our national pension fund still heavily into fossil fuels?

By: Patrick DeRochie   Patrick DeRochie is the senior manager of Shift Action for Pension Wealth and Planet Health, a charitable project that tracks the fossil fuel investments and climate policies of Canadian pension funds, and mobilizes pension beneficiaries to engage fund managers on the climate crisis. As Canada experiences a record-shattering summer of deadly extreme weather, it’s worth remembering that our national pension fund has poured much of our retirement savings into the primary cause of the climate crisis: fossil fuels. In...

July 2023

México. Afores generaron plusvalías por $351 mil 551 millones

Por: Braulio Carbajal Las Administradoras de Fondos para el Retiro (Afore) cerraron el primer semestre de 2023 con entrega de plusvalías (ganancias no concretadas hasta el momento del retiro) por 351 mil 551 millones de pesos. Sólo en junio generaron 63 mil 566 millones de pesos, revelan datos oficiales. Cifras de la Comisión Nacional del Sistema de Ahorro para el Retiro (Consar) dan cuenta de una recuperación de los activos pensionarios de los trabajadores, pues al cierre del primer semestre de...

June 2023

The politicisation of investments at US public funds

By Amanda White with Sarah Rundell The attempts by multiple Republican states to restrict where US pension funds can invest is symptomatic of bad governance. Top1000funds.com takes a deep dive into the quagmire of US state pension funds to assess the impact of partisan politics on the ability of CIOs to do their jobs. The analysis highlights the need for improved practices around delegated authority to prevent the politicisation of investments. So much has been written about the rise and fall...