June 2025

Milliman Pension Buyout Index May 2025

By Jake Pringle & Ryan Cook Estimated competitive retiree buyout cost, as a percentage of accounting liability, decreased by 140 bps from 102.5% to 101.1% during April As the pension risk transfer market continues to grow, it has become increasingly important for plan sponsors to monitor the annuity buyout market when considering a plan termination or de-risking strategy. Figure 1 illustrates retiree buyout costs with two different metrics: The red line represents only the most competitive insurers' rates from each month,...

April 2025

The role of CEOs in the sustainability of defined benefit pension plans

By Joanne Horton, Paraskevi Vicky Kiosse, Maria Koumenta & Evisa Mitrou The future of defined benefit (DB) pensions is a hotly debated topic in reward management. Drawing on agency and managerial power theories, the conditions under which CEOs can affect their sustainability have been examined. We show that when the CEO is a member of the same DB plan as their employees or when the CEO is both a member and a trustee of the plan, this affects the agency and power...

ESG KPI report 2025. Managing what you measure

By Invest Europe Tackling climate change and standing strong on responsible investment themes, such as diversity and zero tolerance to corruption, are among the greatest challenges – and responsibilities – facing the European private equity industry today. These considerations are not only at the forefront of policymakers’ and investors’ minds, but also ever more central to consumers when they decide how to spend their money. We are firm believers in the saying that you cannot manage what you don’t measure. With...

March 2025

2024 financial services monitor know better do better

By Old Mutual The key objective of the Old Mutual Financial Services Monitor is to provide a deep understanding of the working Ghanaian market, uncovering financial attitudes, perceptions, and behaviour in the informal and formal sectors. What makes Old Mutual’s Financial Services Monitor unique, is that its core objective is to support Old Mutual’s drive to champion the financial well-being of Ghanaians. This is aligned to Old Mutual’s overall purpose of becoming our customers’ first choice to sustain, grow and protect...

February 2025

Politics Before Pensions: How New ESG Rules Expose Public Pension System Vulnerabilities

By Danilo Risteski As some of the largest institutional investors in the United States, public pension funds wield considerable power over investment decisions. A recent trend highlights this extraordinary power: state pension funds have started exploiting their retirees’ pensions to force investment companies to invest in accordance with their respective states’ political priorities. Nowhere is this trend more obvious than in the environmental, social, and governance field. On one hand, states like Maine have passed legislation prohibiting public pension funds...

2025 Asset Allocation Return & Risk Assumptions

By Wilshire Wilshire’s long-term inflation forecast is 2.35%, which is up 10 basis points from last year’s assumption. Our practice since 2003 has been to derive our inflation forecast by observing the market’s breakeven inflation rate – the spread between the yield on a 10-year Treasury and the real yield on a similar maturity Treasury Inflation Protected Security (TIPS). During periods of market stress, TIPS pricing may be affected by liquidity demands or a high level of inflation uncertainty, as...

December 2024

Aon UK DC Pension Tracker – Q3 2024: State Pension increase drives rise in savers’ expected incomes

By Aon Over Q2 as a whole, the Aon UK DC Tracker rose which suggests the expected future living standard in retirement provided by defined contribution (DC) savings was higher than at the end of the previous quarter. All members benefited from the April 2024 increase in the state pension, which increased from £10,600 to £11,500 per year. The oldest saver saw the largest proportionate increase from this change as the state pension makes up a larger proportion of their expected retirement income. Positive returns...

The Economics of Net Zero Banking

By Adair Morse & Parinitha R. Sastry Banks have voluntarily committed to align their lending portfolios with a net zero path toward a decarbonized economy. In this review, we explore the economic channels for why portfolio decarbonization might be consistent with lender profit maximization. We frame the question by positing that net zero lending may create differential value through the channels of risk and returns, where return topics span profit margins and lending book growth arguments. We then use the lens of...

November 2024

Global Investor Insights Survey: Pension funds results

By Schroders The Schroders Global Investor Insights Survey analyses the investment perspectives of global financial professionals on a range of topics including macro themes, sustainability and public and private markets. The respondents represent a spectrum of institutions, including pension funds which are the focus of this report.​ The field work was carried out by CoreData Research via an extensive global survey during June–July 2024. The 420 pension fund respondents were split as follows: 28% Corporate DB, 14% Corporate DC, 13% Corporate Hybrid...

2024 Top 40 Money Managers Report: To divest or engage?

By Blake Wolfe With 15 different client organizations, including nine public sector pension plans, the Alberta Investment Management Corp. has opted to engage, rather than divest, from certain investments, particularly those in the energy sector. “One of the things we were very clear on, both for ourselves and in talking to clients, is that divestment wasn’t the way we wanted to go,” says Carmen Velasquez, the investment organization’s managing director of sustainable investing. “One of the things we talk a lot...