September 2021
01Sep

US. Many Teacher Pension Plans Get Failing Grade: New Report

Roughly three-quarters of states offer teachers a retirement plan that isn’t making the grade, according to a ranking released Tuesday. Just 13 states received either a B or a C grade overall in Bellwether Education Partner’s latest look at teacher retirement plans. None received an A. South Dakota, Tennessee, Washington, Utah and New York scored closest, topping the nonprofit organization’s new ranking. Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Kentucky New Jersey and Illinois rounded out the bottom five states. Most teachers are enrolled in a defined-benefit...

September 1, 2021
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01Sep

Sustainability Gains In Asset Management, Led By Marketing

Asset managers are paying more attention to ESG — environmental, social and governance — concerns, according to a recent report from Northern Trust. “While many European markets have long made ESG a focus in their investment strategies, other mature markets in parts of North America and Asia have had a less straightforward approach,” Northern Trust reported, although recently Canadian asset managers have moved ahead of the U.S. “Alongside the pandemic, the summer of 2020 brought a global reckoning with racism, originating...

September 1, 2021
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01Sep

UK’s biggest pension scheme set to screen investments based on workforce diversity

The UK’s largest workplace pension scheme Nest has joined forces with the Church of England Pension Board to sign up to a new charter committing them to screen their investments taking account of gender and ethnicity diversity. It marks a significant step towards tackling the asset management industry’s serial image problem, namely, that they’re all male, pale and stale. A study run by investment data firm reveal more funds in the UK are run by men called Dave than by women. Now...

September 1, 2021
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01Sep

US. Indiana Public Retirement System posts net 23.1% return for fiscal year

Indiana Public Retirement System, Indianapolis, returned a preliminary net 23.1% for the fiscal year ended June 30. The preliminary net return of the system's $38 billion defined benefit plan was higher than its policy benchmark return of 22.4% in the year ended June 30 as well as in other reported time periods as of the same date. For the three, five and 10 years ended June 30, the DB plan returned preliminary annualized net returns of 10.7%, 9.9% and 7%, respectively,...

September 1, 2021
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August 2021
27Aug

Canada. Union Files Legal Challenge Over OMERS’ Early Retirement Policy

A Canadian union has filed a legal challenge with Ontario’s independent pension regulator over the $82.4 billion Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS)’s policy for paramedic plan members’ access to early retirement options. According to the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), OMERS has two classifications for its members: normal retirement age 65 (NRA 65) and normal retirement age 60 (NRA 60). NRA 65 members can retire with an unreduced pension at the age of 65 at the earliest, or...

August 27, 2021
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27Aug

Global Pension Risk Survey 2019

By AON Welcome to the findings of Aon’s 2019 Global Retirement Risk Survey for the Asia-Pacific region. Aon’s Global Retirement Risk Survey has been conducted every two years for over a decade. The survey is part of a global series of surveys that follows defined benefit (DB) plan sponsors’ risk management attitudes and practices around the world. This is the first time that the survey has been conducted in the wider Asia-Pacific region. Japan took part in the research in...

August 27, 2021
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26Aug

How to avoid green bubbles and diversify against climate crisis

Although green bubbles are emerging as a result of the sustainability boom, investors can find safer ways to tap into the climate transition theme. This is according to Nikesh Patel, head of investment strategy at Kempen, who agreed that bubbles are emerging when investors invest in the theme too narrowly, giving the farmland sector as an example. Read also ESG: Impact Investing ‘If you invest only in listed farmland equities, and that became your focus - you are creating a bubble, because...

August 26, 2021
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25Aug

Sweden’s biggest pension manager cuts stocks on inflation concern

The specter of accelerating inflation is prompting the biggest pension manager in Sweden to cut its holdings of stocks and bonds. Read also Ireland. Pensions gap widens as pandemic deepens the divide Alecta, which manages $130 billion, is instead boosting exposure to alternative assets such as infrastructure projects and residential housing in an effort to preserve returns. Read also New Zealand. Super-sharers: How small contributions can push back against inequality "Longer term we may see rising inflation and that is one of the...

August 25, 2021
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24Aug

US. Companies Find It’s a Good Time to Push Pension Obligations Off Balance Sheets

Finance chiefs are stepping up their efforts to move pension obligations off company balance sheets through annuity purchases and other financial tools, taking advantage of well-funded plans and a respite from the scramble over the past year to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic. For years, sponsors of single-employer pension plans have purchased annuities from an insurer for all or some of their employees with vested benefits, thus shrinking a plan’s assets and liabilities and simultaneously strengthening a company’s balance sheet....

August 24, 2021
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23Aug

China: New State Pension to Boost Retirement Savings

The establishment of the new state pension company is waiting for regulatory approval from the CBIRC. China plans to set up a state pension company with registered capital of CNY 11.15 billion (USD 1.72 billion) to boost the retirement funds available for its rapidly ageing population. According to Reuters, 17 bank-affiliated wealth management units, insurers and state institutions will take stakes in the company, whose largest shareholders include the wealth management units of China’s big five banks, each with a stake...

August 23, 2021
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