August 2023
21Aug

US. Pension Risk Transfer Deals Hit Record Level in First Half of 2023

In the first half of 2023 plan sponsors completed a record 289 pension-risk transfer transactions totaling $22.4 billion in premiums, according to a report from Aon, the largest PRT adviser. Aon predicted that the full year would see $40 billion in PRT deals, noting that the PRT market typically is busiest in a year’s second half. The report declared: “The pipeline continues to be robust, and we are hearing a lot of interest from plan sponsors. We expect a busy second half...

August 21, 2023
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21Aug

US. Pension funds in their best shape since just before the last two stock-market crashes

How do you lose more than $400 billion and still end up better off than you were before? Easy. You run a pension fund. America's top corporate pension funds have broken into surplus this year for the first time since 2007, just before the global financial crisis, despite disastrous 2022 investment losses on the stock and bond markets. The reason? Even while markets plunged, rocketing inflation has also led to soaring long-term interest rates. And thanks to accounting rules, pension funds can...

August 21, 2023
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18Aug

Public Employee Pensions and Municipal Insolvency

By Sean Myers  This paper studies how municipal governments jointly manage spending, credit market borrowing, and public employee pensions. I model governments as levered investors who must meet non-defaultable pension obligations and may value government spending more than citizens. I quantify the model using California city-level data, including a new record of fiscal emergencies, tax increases required to maintain essential services. After the financial crisis depleted pension funds, cities engaged in excessive risk-taking: the fiscal emergency option encouraged gambling for...

August 18, 2023
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18Aug

South Africa. Pay back the money: Eskom employees lose pension payouts, and cars after R2.6 million fraud backfires

The Nelspruit Specialised Commercial Crime Court has issued a restraining order against former Eskom employees and their relatives after they allegedly defrauded Eskom of close to R3 million. Mpumalanga spokesperson for the Hawks, Captain Dineo Lucy Sekgotodi, said the order was gratified against Nwabisa Ngxola, Cinderella Moropane, Edward Moropane, and Jeffrey Moropane. It is alleged that during the period between March 2012 and May 2013, Ngxola and Cinderella Moropane were employed at Eskom. The former was responsible for capturing payments and...

August 18, 2023
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18Aug

US. NYC Comptroller Lander & Pension Fund Trustees Warn Entertainment Giants that They Risk Losing Investor Confidence over Prolonged Strikes

The trustees of the five New York City pension funds, led by New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, sent letters to the Chief Executive Officers of Disney, Paramount, and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Comcast, urging them to address the ongoing strikes by the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) today. The ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes have paralyzed major television and film productions in New York City and across the...

August 18, 2023
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July 2023
23Jul

Providing security, building sustainable futures

By Pension Protection Fund  Our purpose is to protect the future of millions of people throughout the UK who belong to defined benefit (DB) pension schemes - 9.6 million as at 31 march 2022. When these schemes fail we’re ready to help. We do this by paying our members, charging a levy and investing for the long term. Read book “here”

July 23, 2023
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21Jul

Pension managers ‘convinced’ inflation is easing, but stress testing to manage assets

Managers of public sector pension funds are “largely convinced” that inflation as a major issue is fading away, but still wary of more economic turbulence, a new report from Ortec Finance has found. The study said that recent economic stress, including rising inflation and interest rates, is leading managers to do more scenario modeling and stress testing to help manage their plans. The Ortec Finance report was based on a survey of 50 U.S. public sector pension fund managers during...

July 21, 2023
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21Jul

Kenya: Local Infrastructure Projects Seek Over Sh700bn Financing From Pension Industry

The Kenya Pension Funds Investment Consortium (KEPFIC) has received infrastructure and alternative investment proposals worth over Sh700 billion ($5.5 billion) from project sponsors and fund managers looking to raise capital from the local retirement benefits schemes. The proposals come as local pension schemes expand their search for suitable investments to provide diversification and higher returns for pensioners. The announcement was made during the opening of the two-day KEPFIC Annual Investment Conference in Nairobi today, where the shortlisted investment opportunities were presented...

July 21, 2023
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20Jul

UK’s Workplace Pension Provider, Smart Pension, Acquires Evolve Pensions

Smart Pension, which claims to be one of the UK’s leading workplace pension providers, announces its acquisition of Evolve Pensions, a provider in workplace pension services through its master trust the Crystal Trust. The acquisition will aim to “improve experience and provide efficiencies for the Crystal Trust’s employers and members, enabled by Keystone, the cloud-based global technology platform developed by Smart Pension’s parent company, the Smart group.” The Crystal Trust currently “has over 128,000 members and £750m in assets.” This is reportedly...

July 20, 2023
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17Jul

How “old economy” companies can be an innovative investment

Innovative companies don’t need to be those that are early stage or particularly associated with technology, according to some long established investors. Francois De Bruin, who runs the Aviva Investors Global Endurance fund, told FTAdviser Vantage Point that long established companies in areas of the old economy, such as Costco, are able to win market share relative to rivals due to what he calls “network effects”, and share the benefits with their customers. Network effects are those which mean that the...

July 17, 2023
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