April 2024

US. NYC Pensions Reach Deal With RBC to Publish Green-Funding Ratio

New York City retirement plans reached an agreement with Royal Bank of Canada for the lender to disclose how much financing it provides for clean-energy projects relative to fossil fuels. Canada’s largest bank is the third financial giant to agree to begin disclosing the ratio after New York Comptroller Brad Lander and the city’s public-pension boards filed shareholder resolutions with six banks in January. The proposal was set to be voted upon at Toronto-based Royal Bank’s annual meeting next week. “We’re...

March 2024

Global top 300 pension funds

By Thinking Ahead Institute The global top 300 pension funds is an annual study conducted by the Thinking Ahead Institute, in conjunction with Pensions and Investments. The research highlights high-level trends in the pension fund industry and provides information on how the characteristics of these top funds have changed. Get the report here

Report on long term investing of large pension funds and public pension reserve funds 2023: Annual Survey of Large Pension Funds and Public Pension Reserve Funds

By Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development This is the tenth edition of the OECD survey of large pension funds and public pension reserve funds that collects long-term investment data since it was first published in 2011. The scope of this report covers 87 public and private pension funds from 34 countries. This survey is based on a qualitative questionnaire sent directly to large pension funds and public pension reserve funds. It covers the infrastructure investments made by large pension...

Leveraging FinTech Compliance to Mitigate Cryptocurrency Volatility for Secure US Employee Retirement Benefits: Bitcoin ETF Case Study

By Samuel Oladiipo Olabanji, Tunbosun Oyewale Oladoyinbo, Christopher Uzoma Asonze, Chinasa Adigwe, Olalekan J Okunleye & Oluwaseun Oladeji Olaniyi The integration of cryptocurrencies, particularly Bitcoin, into retirement savings plans has recently garnered significant attention. This interest has been amplified by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's approval of Bitcoin Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) in January 2024 and Fidelity Investments' decision to include Bitcoin in their 401(k) plans. These landmark developments represent a paradigm shift in retirement investment strategies, merging traditional financial...

Little planning for looming retirement crisis, BlackRock chief warns

The chief executive of the world’s largest asset manager is warning of a future “retirement crisis”, as pension savings fail to keep up with life-extending medical breakthroughs. In his annual letter to investors, the BlackRock chief executive, Larry Fink, said that establishing “a secure, well-earned retirement” would be one of the greatest economic challenges to face the US in the mid-21st century. The boss of BlackRock, which manages about $10tn (£7.4tn) in assets, including retirement funds, praised medical advances, including obesity drugs such...

Pension funds and fossil fuel phase-out: historical developments and limitations of pension climate strategies

 By Clara McDonnell Despite the decades of international climate negotiations and several landmark agreements, global efforts to date to restrict fossil fuel production in line with climate targets have been unsuccessful. As national and international policies continue to fall short of phasing out fossil fuels, increasing attention has been paid to non-state actors, like pension funds, as a potential source of more ambitious climate action. As major asset owners, large shareholders in fossil fuel companies, and historically activist investors, pension...

World’s largest pension fund explores bitcoin as an investment

Japan's government pension fund on Tuesday said it is requesting information on "illiquidity assets" such as bitcoin, as part of research into potential new investments. The Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF) of Japan, the world's largest pension fund by assets under management on several different rankings, said it is looking for "basic information" on illiquid assets other than those in which it already invests. GPIF said it currently puts funds in domestic and foreign bonds and stocks, real estate, infrastructure and private equity....

US. CalPERS pledges more than $8 billion to alts

CalPERS committed $850 million each to Global Infrastructure Partners V and a co-investment sidecar fund. Pension fund officials committed $512 million to buyout fund CVC Capital Partners IX, $300 million to Asia-Pacific focused buyout fund CVC Capital Partners Asia VI, and $268 million to buyout fund Whitney Global Partners II, all managed by CVC Capital Partners. CalPERS committed an additional $300 million to Thrive Capital Partners VIII Growth, a late- stage venture capital fund. It also committed $300 million each...

The next stage of ESG evolution in the pension landscape

By Investment Institute A juggernaut that’s losing momentum or just refiring its engine? This question on ESG investing has come to the fore due to a confluence of exceptional events in 2022. After meeting investors’ return expectations since the 2015 Paris Agreement, last year’s savage bear market hit a broad range of investment strategies, no matter their intrinsic merits. ESG was no exception. The episode showed that ESG investments are exposed to periodic setbacks due to a larger dynamic that has little to do with...

Unpackaging ESG: Evidence from 401(k) Investment

By Jiaxing Tian & Jiahong Shi We study how investors respond to scandals related to three distinct aspects of ESG--E(nvironmental), S(ocial) and G(overnance)--in their retirement savings. Using data on 401(k) investments, we show that nearby ESG scandals correlate with increased ESG fund additions and flows, possibly through ``evoking'' their existing sustainable preferences. Investors with different characteristics respond heterogeneously to E, S and G scandals. In magnitude, old investors are twice as likely as young investors to add ESG funds to...