December 2022
01Dec

US. Corporate pension buyouts reach $26 billion in Q3 — LIMRA survey

U.S. corporate pension plan buyout sales totaled $26.1 billion in the quarter ended Sept. 30, the highest volume for a third quarter, a LIMRA survey found. It also brings the year-to-date volume of buyout sales to $41 billion, breaking the previous annual record of $36 billion in 2012 in just the first three quarters of the year. LIMRA projects the total volume for 2022 will exceed $50 billion. The third quarter was highlighted by the second-largest U.S. pension buyout transaction in...

December 1, 2022
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01Dec

Canada Pension Plan funds war and climate change

The Canada Pension Plan (CPP) manages $539 billion on behalf of over 21 million working and retired Canadians, making it the seventh largest pension plan in the world. The CPP Investment Board (CPPIB) however is accountable first and foremost to the federal and provincial governments, not the contributors and beneficiaries. A webinar  “What is the CPPIB Really Up To?” was hosted earlier this year by the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute, Just Peace Advocates, World BEYOND War and several other organizations....

December 1, 2022
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November 2022
28Nov

U.K. Pension savers ‘lost £1.7 billion on retirement transition

New research from HSBC Tomorrow Master Trust shows workplace pension scheme members are losing around £1.7 billion a year during their transition into and in retirement, due to savers choosing costly pathways to access their money. While some of this loss comes from scheme members withdrawing more than the 25% tax-free lump sum, exposing them to hefty tax penalties, many are potentially buying products that are not the optimal solution for their circumstances. The research was commissioned for a report Converting...

November 28, 2022
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25Nov

Global top 300 pension funds

By Thinking Ahead Institute and Pensions & Investments Pension fund industry trends Growth headwinds test financial and sustainability mandate resilience Has the macro reality shifted from ‘lower-for-longer’ to ‘end-of-cheap-money’? The last decade’s fear of deflation has been replaced by significantly higher inflation. A steep rate hike cycle has led to more interest rate volatility and is placing pressure on pension funds to deliver sufficient risk-adjusted returns. Pension funds are expected to face elevated macro uncertainty over the short term. The industry has...

November 25, 2022
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25Nov

The Financialization of U.S. Public Pensions, 1945-1974

By Sean Vanatta This article examines a major transformation public employee pension investment in the United States, from investing public funds in public infrastructure in the 1940s and 1950s, to investing public funds in private securities—corporate bonds, stocks, and mortgages—in the 1960s and 1970s. Three factors drove this change. First, in the adjacent field of professional asset management, motivated financial elites orchestrated a shift in state-level trust law, from legally-sanctioned investment lists, which encouraged amateur investment and safety, to the...

November 25, 2022
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25Nov

Ranked: The World’s 100 Biggest Pension Funds

Despite economic uncertainty, pension funds saw relatively strong growth in 2021. The world’s 100 biggest pension funds are worth over $17 trillion in total, an increase of 8.5% over the previous year. This graphic uses data from the Thinking Ahead Institute to rank the world’s biggest pension funds, and where they are located. What is a Pension Fund? A pension fund is a fund that is designed to provide retirement income. This ranking covers four different types: Sovereign funds: Funds controlled directly by...

November 25, 2022
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25Nov

UK. MPs told ‘illegal’ LDIs fanned gilt crisis

The flames of the crisis in the gilt market following the Mini Budget were fanned by widely used liability driven investments (LDIs) that were “almost certainly illegal”, MPs were told yesterday. At a hearing in front of the Work and Pensions Select Committee, experts criticised LDIs for being highly leveraged, causing "carnage" for some pension schemes, and blamed regulators for not acting previously. Bond market veteran Dr Con Keating, now head of research at the specialist insurer Brighton Rock Group, said...

November 25, 2022
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23Nov

US. Here’s How Much Rising Rates Help Pension Plan Liabilities

Rising interest rates may be a bane for the fixed-income section of pension plans’ portfolios. But the ascending rates tend to have a benign influence on pension liabilities. A study by NISA Investment Advisors sketches out how much, and also spotlights little-appreciated side effects. Boosting long-term rates means that the liabilities, or the plans’ discounted value of future cash flows, decrease. All things being equal, this situation tends to produce the welcome result of enhancing plans’ funded status. By NISA’s calculations,...

November 23, 2022
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22Nov

P&I Research Center. Public Pension Plan Benchmarks

Prepared by: Valerie Ge, CFA Research Analyst This report intends to provide insights into the overall and asset class benchmarks selected by the 50 largest U.S. public defi ned benefi t plans. The top 50 plans are selected based on their reported U.S. DB asset totals in Pensions & Investments’ 2021 survey. Eleven out of 50 plans did not disclose enough detailed information, and 10 plans had a fi scal year ended other than June 30. Insights into the overall and...

November 22, 2022
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21Nov

UK regulators call for action on hidden leverage threat to pension funds

Regulators and policymakers are calling for action to address the risks associated with pension funds’ use of derivatives, after key watchdogs admitted last week that they were unprepared for the crisis that hit the industry in September. The meltdown, now the focus of four separate parliamentary probes, revealed regulators did not have a reliable picture of the scale of hidden leverage in liability-driven investment (LDI) strategies, which cover about £1.4tn of the future promises made by UK defined benefit pension...

November 21, 2022
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