August 2021
04Aug

US. Lockheed Martin offloads $4.9 billion in pension liabilities

Lockheed Martin Corp., Bethesda, Md., purchased group annuity contracts from Athene Holding Ltd. to transfer about $4.9 billion in U.S. pension plan liabilities. The purchase completed Tuesday will transfer the benefit-paying responsibilities for about 18,000 U.S. retirees and beneficiaries to Athene's wholly owned subsidiaries Athene Annuity and Life Co. and Athene Annuity & Life Assurance Company of New York, a news release from the aerospace and defense company said Tuesday. The Athene subsidiaries will begin paying benefits to the retirees and...

August 4, 2021
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03Aug

Europe’s Pension Funds Still Don’t Know How to Treat a Key Risk

The main organization representing European pension funds says it’s still not clear how the industry should balance financial returns against a desire to do more environmental and social investing. The lack of clarity means pension investors representing about $5 trillion may be putting less cash than they otherwise might into sustainable assets. That’s as the need for a decisive reallocation of capital toward planet-saving goals grows more urgent as global warming becomes increasingly deadly. How asset managers treat ESG risk will...

August 3, 2021
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July 2021
30Jul

Is the Aon/WTW deal collapse a positive for UK pensions?

The announcement that Aon and Willis Towers Watson (WTW) have called off their $30bn (£21.7bn) merger after the businesses reached an impasse with the US Department of Justice (DOJ) over competition issues did not come as a huge surprise to many. While the two firms received approval (with conditions) for the merger by the European Commission in July, the tie-up had become increasingly bogged down over issues with the DOJ - issues which cumulated in the US agency filing a...

July 30, 2021
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28Jul

US. Can Robinhood be trusted with retirement accounts?

Robinhood, the brokerage popular among novice traders, may soon add retirement accounts onto its platform following its impending IPO, expected this week. New types of accounts could add scale to the brokerage—but may draw even more scrutiny from financial regulators. Robinhood, the brokerage popular among novice traders, may soon add retirement accounts onto its platform following its impending IPO, expected this week. New types of accounts could add scale to the brokerage—but may draw even more scrutiny from financial regulators. “Retirement...

July 28, 2021
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27Jul

A healthier future for the Mexican pension industry

The last five years have been ones of intense transformation for the largest pension fund in Mexico. Establishing a sound and replicable investment process has been one of the main challenges for the team. Changing the team’s culture towards long-term investing, based on optimising diversification, has been the name of the game, and even though there are additional challenges in the future, positive results arise both from a quantitative and qualitative perspective. As a fusion between Banorte Bank and the...

July 27, 2021
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23Jul

Importance of ‘social’ pillar in ESG increases for pension funds despite dearth of index strategies, survey finds

The ‘S’ pillar of environmental, social and governance (ESG) is becoming increasingly important for pension funds, however, a dearth of core-social related indices remain, according to a survey conducted by CREATE Research in partnership with DWS. The survey, which interviewed 142 pension plans, found 66% expect to increase their allocations to ‘S’ pillar passive funds over the next three years despite just 14% currently using core social-related indices. In the subsequent report, titled Passive Investing 2021: Rise of the social pillar...

July 23, 2021
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22Jul

Prudential to Sell Its Retirement Division to Great-West for $3.55 Billion

Prudential Financial Inc. said it would sell its full-service retirement business to a unit of Canada’s Great-West Lifeco Inc. for $3.55 billion as the life insurer continues implementing Chief Executive Officer Charles Lowrey’s three-year transformation plan. The business will be purchased by Great-West’s Greenwood Village, Colorado-based Empower Retirement division. Prudential expects total proceeds of about $2.8 billion from the sale, which is expected to close in the first quarter of next year, the companies said in a statement. It will...

July 22, 2021
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22Jul

India. Want to give more options to pension funds, so opening up IPO investments: PFRDA chairman

Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) will soon allow pension fund managers (PFMs) to invest in initial public offerings (IPOs), follow on public offers (FPOs) and offer for sale (OFS). This would mean that PFMs could use their investment corpus to invest into upcoming IPOs including the Rs 16,000 crore initial public offering of Paytm. Speaking to Moneycontrol, Supratim Bandyopadhyay, Chairman, PFRDA said these will allow PFMs to have a wider range of investment options. "This will broaden the PFMs investment...

July 22, 2021
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16Jul

UK. Pension tax change proposals branded ‘tragic’ and ‘crazy’

On the go: Rumours that the Treasury is planning to raid pensions have been branded “tragic” and “crazy” by speakers at a Hymans Robertson webinar, who warned that any reforms harming incentives to save could undo the work put in to boost retirement standards. Pensions Expert reported in June on the rumours that Treasury officials have drawn up a list of three reforms to the way pension contributions are taxed, with the aim being to find the money to pay...

July 16, 2021
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15Jul

US. How Benchmarks Keep Pension Stakeholders in the Dark

There’s no shortage of studies arguing that pension funds and endowments would have been wise to put the kibosh on their complex portfolios and opt for a simple passive strategy over the last five, 10, or 20 years. But new research from Richard Ennis, one of the founders of investment consultant EnnisKnupp, details another fault line in the argument. Benchmarks in investing, just as in sports or healthcare, are designed to measure performance, costs, risk, and other data points against peers...

July 15, 2021
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