April 2021
23Apr

A $120 Billion Danish Pension Manager Loses Faith in Bonds

In one of the world’s best-run pension markets, the biggest commercial manager says it’s time to dump bonds. “The switch out of fixed income into broader equities, whether it’s listed or unlisted, is what we recommend and what we are positioned for,” Kasper Lorenzen, chief investment officer at Copenhagen-based PFA, said in an interview. Back when most asset managers were being taught the trade, “we learned that government bonds are the safe assets, the risk-free asset,” he said. “Well, let’s see...

April 23, 2021
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21Apr

UK. Retirement app Pensionbee valued at £365m in London listing

Online pension management app Pensionbee (PBEE.L) has joined the London Stock Exchange in an IPO that values the business at £365m ($507m). The retirement savings app priced its shares at 165p each on Wednesday, the company said in a filing. Conditional trading began on Wednesday, with shares trading slightly below the offer price by mid-morning. Read also Vanguard launches price war in UK pensions market Pensionbee raised around £55m via the sale of 33m new shares and the sale of over 2...

April 21, 2021
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20Apr

UK. Industry tightens up on pension scams as losses hit £10bn

Pension schemes face tougher due diligence requirements on transfer requests as new figures show the amount lost to pension scams and fraud has hit £10 billion five years after the introduction of the pension freedoms. Regulators, courts and The Pensions Ombudsman (TPO) have all made significant statements in recent months which cover both the fall-out from previous scams and the prevention of future scams. In its recent report, the House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee called on the government...

April 20, 2021
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20Apr

Uganda To Train Pension Trustees

The Insurance Training College and Uganda Retirement Benefits Regulatory Authority (URBRA) have unveiled the commencement of a trustees training and certification programme intended to improve and enhance the professionalism of pension saving scheme trustees. According to the press statement, the training will be conducted by the institute on behalf of URBRA. The training is in line with the mandate of the Institute: promoting professionalism in the financial services sector as well as URBRA’s mandate of improving and promoting the development of...

April 20, 2021
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19Apr

Vanguard launches price war in UK pensions market

Vanguard has launched its financial advice service in the UK, charging an 'all-inclusive' ongoing fee of 0.79 per cent. The headline cost will incorporate annual platform charges of 0.15 per cent, ongoing fund charges of 0.12 per cent, transaction costs and an advice fee of 0.5 per cent. Vanguard said it would not charge an initial, or any other, fee. The service will be targeted at clients with assets of £50,000 or more. The company is to focus on providing restricted advice...

April 19, 2021
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13Apr

New York pension fund divests $7 million from Canadian oil sands firms

New York’s state pension fund is restricting investment in six Canadian oil sands companies because they have not shown they are prepared for a transition to a low-carbon future, the fund’s Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said on Monday. The New York State Common Retirement Fund will divest more than $7 million in securities already held in the companies, and not make any further investments in them, DiNapoli said in a statement. Canada’s oil sands hold the world’s third-largest crude reserves and have...

April 13, 2021
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12Apr

World’s Top Pension Fund Treads Water as ESG Picks Up Pace

After taking over the helm of the world’s biggest pension fund in 2015, Hiromichi Mizuno helped chart a course that not just made sustainable investing big in Japan, but also raised the strategy’s global profile. Read also UK. Pension Superfunds: Bright Future or Flash in the Pan? The Government Pension Investment Fund’s former chief investment officer sidestepped public bemusement and criticism at home, as he sought to turn GPIF into a fund that -- as one Harvard Business Review article put...

April 12, 2021
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08Apr

Robert C. Merton and the Science of Finance

By Zvi Bodie Starting with his 1970 doctoral dissertation and continuing to today, Robert C. Merton has revolutionized the theory and practice of finance. In 1997 Merton shared a Nobel Prize in Economics “for a new method to determine the value of derivatives.” His contributions to the science of finance, however, go far beyond that. In this essay I describe Merton’s main contributions. They include the following: 1. The introduction of continuous-time stochastic models (the Ito calculus) to the theory...

April 8, 2021
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07Apr

Australia. Dutch pension giant boosts local exposure with $350m EG investment

Dutch pension giant PGGM doubled down on its investment in Australian commercial real estate, putting $350 million into a diversified fund managed by EG less than six months after entering into an $800 million partnership with Charter Hall. PGGM joins four other investors in the open-ended diversified EG Australian Core Enhanced Fund (ACE) which in the past two years has spent $234 million on three industrial properties, a Bunnings near Sydney Airport and a Perth office tower. Read more @Financial Review 661...

April 7, 2021
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March 2021
24Mar

Exclusive Coverage: CIOs Assess How Pension Fund Investors Can Be Successful After COVID-19

Strong governance, flexibility over benefit structures, clever investment strategies, and maintaining savvy relations with investment trustees are among the best practices that can help pension funds do well in the post-pandemic era. A panel of four allocators and consultants discussed solutions in CIO’s virtual conference “Inside the Minds of CIOs.” Speakers included pension investment chiefs from Maryland and New Mexico, as well as leaders from Backstop Solutions and Insight Investment. Public pensions face any number of challenges to deliver good returns....

March 24, 2021
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