February 2022
03Feb

UK. Alternatives could give DC pensions higher returns at no extra risk, PPI says

Alternative assets could present defined contribution schemes with a means to increase value for members without taking on any extra risk, the Pensions Policy Institute has found. The PPI's report, published yesterday (February 2), stated DC default funds could better serve the needs of members by expanding the range of asset classes they invest in, putting more focus on better returns and lower volatility. Those who would benefit from an increased focus on returns include those working beyond the state pension...

February 3, 2022
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03Feb

Impact Investing Ghana receives RISA funding to support Research and Industry

Impact Investing Ghana (IIGh) has received GBP 109,536 from the Research and Innovation Systems for Africa (RISA) fund to foster research-industry connections in Ghana. The project aims to ‘strengthen synergies between research and industry to unlock pathways to financing innovation that will improve integration and coordination, as well as support demand for the financing by supporting Enterprise Support Organisations (ESOs). Strengthening the connections between research and industry is essential for innovation, commercialisation, and dissemination of research results. While Ghana has research...

February 3, 2022
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03Feb

US. Investment Opportunities for DB Plans Moving Forward

As corporate defined benefit  (DB) plans consider market volatility, interest rate movements and cash flow needs, there are certain investments and strategies that investment managers suggest they consider. Adam Levine, investment director of abrdn’s Client Solutions Group in New York City, says funded ratios for corporate DB plans improved quite a bit in 2021 both because of returns and discount rate movements, so more plans are moving into fixed income to protect their funded statuses. Closed or frozen plans, especially,...

February 3, 2022
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02Feb

​Pension funds neglect human capital when setting investment policy, say experts

Pension funds should always take into account human capital, or the career perspective of their members, when determining how much risk they can take with their investments. But they too often fail to do this, according to experts. The degree of certainty of future labour income affects the risk capacity of pension participants; the more predictable and stable their income, the more risk they can shoulder, argued Thomas Pistorius, a risk manager at Pensioenfonds Vervoer, the €37bn fund for the...

February 2, 2022
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01Feb

U.S. public pension funds may turn to more ‘aggressive’ investment, report says

U.S. public pension funds will likely have to switch to more aggressive investment strategies in the coming years to fill funding gaps despite assets held by sovereign investors having grown to record levels amid the 2021 equity market boom, a new report said. On average, the difference between assets and liabilities at U.S. public pension funds, known as the "funded ratio," remains "unsatisfactory" at less than 75%, sovereign investor specialist Global SWF said in a report. To boost returns, many will...

February 1, 2022
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January 2022
28Jan

UK. Pension professionals demand dashboards and climate action

Pensions dashboards and climate change action ranked as the joint top priority for Society of Pension Professionals members, according to a new survey. The SPP’s survey, which polled around 7,000 pension professionals, questioned members on where they wanted the government and regulators to focus their energies over the next 12 months and the next three to five years. Almost a third of members placed the dashboards rollout as their top choice for the coming year, with 61 per cent of members...

January 28, 2022
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25Jan

Aviva Investors CEO warns directors over sustainability targets

The chief executive of Aviva Investors has warned it will take action against company directors if they do not meet its expectations on sustainability improvements. In a letter sent to 1,500 companies in which Aviva Investors is invested, Mark Versey said the fund house will focus on their performances against four themes: biodiversity, human rights, climate and executive pay. He said the company would hold both boards and individual directors accountable at companies "where the pace of change on climate, biodiversity...

January 25, 2022
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24Jan

Investors need to create own targets for China

Asset owners need to actively determine what their exposures to China's fast-growing equity universe should be, rather than relying on emerging markets benchmark indexes providing limited access now to some of the mainland's most compelling alpha and diversification opportunities, according to Acadian Asset Management LLC. The $113 billion Boston-based quant manager's Dec. 16 paper, "Polarizing Views: China's Impact on Emerging Markets Investing," calls on institutional investors to review and revamp their allocations to China, unconstrained by benchmark weights, based on...

January 24, 2022
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21Jan

US. Pension funds pin their hopes on inflation

America’s biggest private sector pension plans did so badly last year that they earned barely half as much as the traditional low-risk, low-fee balanced portfolio of stocks and bonds. So report international pension consultants Milliman & Co. It says something about the usual performance of U.S. company pension plans that Milliman calls this 2021 result a “win.” (On the bright side, though, company pensions still did much better than Social Security, whose investments effectively lost money.) The 100 biggest private sector pension plans...

January 21, 2022
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20Jan

Why Sustainable Strategies Outperformed in 2021

It paid for investors to be sustainable in 2021, even as energy companies were among the stock market’s best performers. Companies that scored the strongest on environmental, social, and governance metrics saw some of the highest returns in 2021 with help from stocks such as Nvidia (NVDA), Microsoft (MSFT), and TSLA (TSLA). The Morningstar U.S. Sustainability Leaders Index--representing the 50 U.S. companies with the best ESG scores as measured by Sustainalytics (a division of Morningstar)--returned 33.3% for the year, beating the...

January 20, 2022
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