August 2022

Renewable energy’s charm still growing for investors

Amid a just-passed U.S. climate bill unleashing record investment in domestic clean energy, energy transition efforts in the U.K. and Europe well underway and energy security concerns raised by the Ukraine war, institutional investors seem poised for the next level of investing in renewables. "Over the last year alone, we've witnessed the highest levels of interest in renewables we've ever seen from institutional investors," said Matt Setchell, co-head of Octopus Energy Generation's fund management team in London. Part of Octopus...

December 2021

US. With Pandemic Lessons Learned, Institutional Investors Gear Up for 2022

Recently, the Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. (MassMutual) announced it had finalized the consolidation of Barings’ mutual funds with MassMutual funds onto the MassMutual investments platform. To mark the occasion, PLANSPONSOR sat down with Keith McDonagh, the head of MassMutual’s institutional solutions business, to talk about this and other developments, including the state of competition in the institutional services space and the challenges he is hearing about from brokers, consultants and their institutional investor clients. At a high level, McDonagh...

Record returns notched in pandemic head list

A global pandemic in its second year, historically strong equity markets and a new occupant in the White House dominated headlines during the past year, while the return of inflation and regulatory and legislative changes were also among Pensions & Investments' top 10 stories of 2021. The top story this year — chosen by P&I's editors — is the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. As it lagged on, a historic market recovery spurred in part by actions taken to...

Chinese province offers $31,000 baby loans to counter shrinking population

A Chinese province with one of the fastest-shrinking populations is rolling out special loans to encourage couples to marry and have babies, as the rapidly-aging country tries to reverse a slump in births. Jilin province in northeast China will support banks to provide up to 200,000 yuan ($31,400) of “marriage and birth consumer loans” to married couples, according to an official blueprint on policies to promote population growth. There were no details on how the government would offer support, but the...

October 2021

Benchmarking Retirement Income Systems Around the World: Which Countries Rank Highest and Why?

By David Knox The variety of retirement income systems around the world is great, with varying dependencies on public-sector pensions, funded private pensions, and savings outside these formal systems. But which are producing the best outcomes? And which are sustainable into the future, as many countries face the effects of a significantly aging population? The Melbourne Mercer Global Pension Index considers more than 40 indicators in calculating an index value for the systems in 16 countries covering more than half...

Ros Altmann: Could pensions be used to boost more sustainable investing?

As we rebuild the economy after Covid-19 and pursue the government’s aims to ‘Level up’ and ‘Build back better’, the greening of finance has become increasingly important. With the impacts of climate change ever more apparent, politicians seek to appeal to the ‘green vote’. The legislative measures to boost the battle against climate change include: mandating the UK’s main financial regulators to factor in climate-related issues; statutory requirements for pension schemes to address the international Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures...

September 2021

Horizon Effect on Optimal Retirement Decision

By Junkee Jeon, Minsuk Kwak & Kyunghyun Park We study an optimal consumption, investment, life insurance, and retirement decision of an economic agent who has an option to retire early any time before the mandatory retirement date. We conduct a thorough theoretical analysis for the optimal retirement problem with general utility function in the presence of mandatory retirement date, which leads to the optimal stopping problem in finite horizon. Furthermore, different marginal utility of consumption before and after retirement is...

June 2021

3 hurdles to sustainable investing — and how to overcome them

Can sustainable investing save the world?Jason Jay, director of the MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative, thinks so — with three caveats. In a March 2021 talk, part of the MIT Impact Investing Initiative spring speaker series, Jay laid out the case for sustainable investing and outlined three major challenges. Sustainable investing is at a tipping point, said the MIT Sloan senior lecturer. “What’s been happening over the last 20 years — and really accelerating over the last five years — is that...

May 2021

US. Strong Stock Market Boosts 401(k) Investors’ Equity Exposure

A surging stock market, coupled with slow and steady trades into equities, brought 401(k) investors in April to their highest level of equity exposure since 2001, according to the Alight Solutions 401(k) index. During the month, nearly all the trading days favored equities over fixed income; four days favored fixed income funds, and 17 days favored equity funds. Also of note was the fact that April has no days of above-normal trading activity. The average net trading activity was a mere...

US. How Mass Retirement Is Affecting the Bond Market

Public work is a different ballgame, but in the private sector, defined benefit pensions have largely been replaced by 401(k) plans. However, there's still a massive amount of pension liabilities floating around in the market, and with mass retirement setting in, how those funds are managed can affect retirees everywhere – regardless of work history. Read also US. Biden’s $86 Billion Pension Rescue Set to Boost Corporate Bonds “There remains $1.8 trillion in assets in the largest 100 public companies’ pension...