September 2020

29Sep

Pension Fund Administrators in Nigeria and their scorecard

Despite the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which affected most aspects of the Nigerian economy, Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) in Nigeria performed satisfactorily, as they recorded positive returns between January and August 2020. According to the report from Pension Nigeria, no PFA had negative returns on investment (ROI) during the period under review, indicating that all PFAs for Fund I, II, III, and IV recorded positive returns. This is quite impressive, given that the pandemic had impacted most...

September 29, 2020
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28Sep

Canada’s pension fund plans to invest a third of funds in emerging markets by 2025. India is a major component

Canada’s massive pension fund plans to invest up to a third of its funds in emerging markets over the next five years and India is an important destination, the fund’s Asia Pacific head, Suyi Kim, told CNBC.Domestic consumption, technology and increasing demand for infrastructure to support the growth underpin many of the investment themes and opportunities that CPPIB looks at in India, Kim said.The growth rate of South Asia’s largest economy has taken a hit over the last few years...

September 28, 2020
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25Sep

US. Pensions Have Been Shunning Stocks at Their Own Peril

With the Fed signaling low interest rates for the foreseeable future, pension funds weigh bigger bets on equities Read also US. Pension Buyouts a Relative Bargain, Says Mercer Pension funds and endowments have been shifting away from the U.S. stock market for years. Some are now reconsidering that decision. Read also JPMorgan-backed Brazil fintech plans to expand in U.S., Mexico Individual investors, including younger traders using apps like Robinhood, have been playing a bigger role in the market lately. They’ve been buying...

September 25, 2020
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23Sep

UK. Pension funds should allocate towards infrastructure and growth assets as government bonds now provide “return-free risk”, says Baroness Altmann

Former pensions minister and peer of the House of Lords, Baroness Ros Altmann is a well-known economist and campaigner. Her work has included leading a lobby that secured millions of pounds in compensation for the retirees of the UK’s former nationalised steel industry, who faced losing their entire state pensions. Read also UK. Platform giants join firms in pension switching call Speaking at the World Pensions Council’s virtual conference, the G7 Pensions Investment Summit, Altmann said that pension funds must...

September 23, 2020
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15Sep

UK. Government encourages pension schemes to invest in green tech and infrastructure

Measures aimed at encouraging pension schemes to invest in a more diverse range of long term assets, including green technology and infrastructure, have been outlined by the government. It has launched a consultation and is seeking views on additional steps to encourage the consolidation of smaller pension schemes into larger schemes. The government believes a key wider benefit of an increase in consolidation could be the increased share of assets saved in large, defined contribution (DC) schemes potentially able to...

September 15, 2020
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14Sep

UK. Credit downgrades present ‘serious challenges’ for pension schemes – AXA IM

A fall in the average credit quality of fixed income indices and increased competition for high-quality assets presents “serious challenges” for pension schemes, AXA Investment Managers (IM) has warned. Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, rating agencies have down graded over £778bn of corporate issues across global indices, leaving high quality assets in “short supply” during a period of rising demand. AXA IM Buy and Maintain credit team portfolio manager, Simon Baxter, stated that the concentration in high grade...

September 14, 2020
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11Sep

2019 World Pensions Forum Held in EU Capital Before G7 Summit

By M. Nicolas J. Firzli The 8th World Pensions Forum was held 23-24 May: 130 pension executives and supranational experts representing $12 trillion in combined assets convened in Brussels to discuss “Effective Asset Ownership”. The Forum was pleased to note that some of our ideas were taken up by the Finnish presidency of the Council of Europe and the G7 Steering Committee – notably the empowerment of women entrepreneurs and the notion of institutional co-investment in private equity and sustainable...

September 11, 2020
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08Sep

ANC on prescribed assets in South Africa

The ANC’s head of Economic Transformation, Enoch Godongwana, says that the party is moving away from talk of ‘prescribed assets’ as economic policy, but still wants to find ways to ‘unlock’ South Africa’s pensions to assist with the country’s infrastructure goals. Godongwana was speaking to Insurance company Alexander Forbes in an interview on a range of economic topics, including the party’s plan for pensions and prescribed assets in South Africa. Read also South Africa. There’s a pensions train...

September 8, 2020
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07Sep

US. DOL´S mixed message for plan sponsors

The Labor Department is on a tear. In recent actions, it has opened the door for sponsors of defined contribution retirement plans to consider adding alternative investments such as private equity to their lineups. And it also sent a stern warning for both defined benefit and DC plan sponsors over including investments with an explicit ESG focus. More recently, it has proposed blocking an ERISA plan sponsor's ability to vote a proxy unless the issue has an economic impact on...

September 7, 2020
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07Sep

Canada. CPPIB announces $235M investment in GLP Japan logistics fund

On 4 September the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) confirmed its participation in the launch of a $2.6 billion Japanese logistics fund announced by GLP late last month, marking the latest cooperation between the pension fund manager and Asia’s largest logistics developer. CPPIB, which has backed GLP ventures in Japan since 2011, is committing JPY 25 billion ($235 million) to GLP Japan Income Fund (GLP JIF), an open-ended core vehicle which GLP and its partners have already seeded...

September 7, 2020
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