October 2025
03Oct

Venture & growth capital in Europe – mapping pension funds’ attitudes

By Pensions For Purpose Across Europe, pension funds manage over €3tn in assets, yet only roughly 0.12% is allocated to venture and growth capital (VC). Meanwhile, VC investment in Europe totalled €15bn in 2023. These numbers together highlight two persistent questions: can allocation to VC be compatible with the fiduciary duties of pension funds? If so, why has the historical aggregated allocation of pension funds to this asset class been so modest? To address these questions, we embarked on a journey...

October 3, 2025
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03Oct

UK and European pension funds laying the groundwork for VC surge

UK and European pension funds are laying the groundwork to become a more significant source of venture capital (VC) funding, according to a report from Venture Connections, European Women in VC and Pensions for Purpose, with Nordic pension funds the most active, despite growing momentum in the UK. The report, Mapping Pension Funds Attitudes to Venture & Growth in Europe, suggested that pension funds have the chance to help savers benefit and support long-term economic renewal, estimating that while only...

October 3, 2025
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02Oct

US. Amid Higher Funded Status, Pension Plans Consider Their Options

The assets of the 100 largest corporate defined benefit pension plans rose by $8 billion in August to $1.29 trillion, and the funded ratio of DB plans increased for the fifth consecutive month to 106.2%, according to data from Milliman. “[The current level of funding] is a significant milestone in the DB space, as the surplus funding gives plan sponsors more options for how to proceed with their plan, whether they want to continue operating their plan on a [liability-driven investment]...

October 2, 2025
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September 2025
29Sep

China’s local pension fund reaps over 5 pct investment return in 2024

China's local pension fund saw a return on investments of 5.52 percent in 2024, official data showed on Monday. The fund, managed by the National Council for Social Security Fund (NCSSF), generated investment income of nearly 105.69 billion yuan (about 14.87 billion U.S. dollars) last year, according to the NCSSF's annual report. Despite rising economic challenges at home and abroad in 2024, the NCSSF managed to preserve and grow the value of the fund, thereby helping to bolster the country's efforts...

September 29, 2025
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29Sep

Strengthening Nigeria’s pension sector: Rethinking the new capital requirements for PFAs and PFCs

The National Pension Commission’s (PENCOM) newly revised capital requirements for Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) & Pension Fund Custodians (PFCs), while aimed at strengthening the financial resilience of operators, risk creating unintended consequences that could undermine investor confidence, restrict innovation, and distort the competitive landscape of Nigeria’s pension sector. This public commentary advocates for a more balanced and globally aligned approach that preserves the safety of pension assets while enabling growth, competition, and sustainable operations. 1. Understanding the Nature of Pension...

September 29, 2025
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26Sep

Aligning your pension scheme with the Taskforce on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures recommendations

By Department for Work and Pensions This guide aims to help trustees evaluate the way in which climate-related risks and opportunities may affect their strategies. Trustees should consider how different investments and strategies could be impacted by transition and physical risks, at an asset class, sector and firm level where appropriate. Schemes should set out what risks and opportunities they consider to be relevant or material to them over the short/medium/long term time horizons for their scheme. They should use scenario analysis...

September 26, 2025
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26Sep

2025 Individual Investor Survey: Welcome to the age of diminished expectations

By  Natixis Investment Managers Investors have been on an emotional roller coaster over the first 25 years of the 21st century. On the downside, they held on for dear life as the dotcom bubble, Global Financial Crisis, European debt crisis, Covid, and a historic bout of inflation played out in the headlines and their portfolios. But along with the losses, investors found compelling gains. A decade of record-low interest rates buoyed stocks, and the tech sector boomed. It was a thrill ride...

September 26, 2025
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26Sep

Optimization Algorithms for Pension Asset Allocation Under Market Volatility

By Akshay Sharma & Satish Kabade Pension fund organizations function as essential financial entities that protect employee retirement funds to provide complete and punctual pension distributions. Pension fund effectiveness through asset distribution determines how well a fund meets its future obligations. Traditional methods of portfolio optimization align with the Modern Portfolio Theory through the Markowitz model to help determine asset allocation by defining the relationship between return and risk. These static modeling approaches fail to fulfill their purpose in real...

September 26, 2025
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12Sep

The world’s largest pension funds – 2025

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. The world’s top 300 pensions funds now stand at a record US$ 24.4 trillion This surpasses the previous record set in 2021, completing a three year recovery Yet asset growth slowed in 2024, increasing by 7.8% from...

September 12, 2025
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09Sep

Top pension funds reach all-time global record

The world’s largest 300 pension funds reached a new US$ 24.4 trillion record in terms of their total assets under management, according to this year’s Global Top 300 Pension Funds report by leading global advisory, broking and solutions company, WTW’s Thinking Ahead Institute. The research highlights high-level trends in the pension fund industry and provides information on the changing composition of the top 300 list of pension funds globally, including the characteristics and investment allocations of these pension funds. This year’s...

September 9, 2025
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