June 2022
14Jun

US. New York State Common allocates $350 million for in-state co-investments

New York State Common Retirement Fund, Albany, committed $350 million total to a pair of investment funds through its In-State Private Equity Investment Program. The pension fund committed another $50 million to the Hudson River Co-Investment Fund III, in addition to the $300 million previously committed, confirmed Mark Johnson, a spokesman for Thomas P. DiNapoli, the state comptroller and sole trustee of the $279.7 billion pension fund. The pension fund also announced a $300 million commitment to the new Hudson River...

June 14, 2022
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14Jun

United States: IRS Announces New Retirement Plan Pre-Examination Program

The Internal Revenue Service announced last week that it was piloting a pre-examination retirement plan compliance program beginning this month. This program involves the IRS notifying an employer by letter in advance that the employer's retirement plan was selected for an upcoming examination. The letter gives the employer a 90-day window to review its retirement plan's document and operations to determine if they meet all current tax law requirements. If the employer does not respond within 90 days, the IRS...

June 14, 2022
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13Jun

Pension investors launch campaign against dual-class share structures

Leading UK and U.S. pension investors managing more than $1 trillion have launched a campaign to stop companies using dual-class share structures that concentrate voting power in the hands of certain shareholders at the expense of others. Launched by British railways pensions scheme Railpen and the non-profit Council of Institutional Investors (CII), others backing the Investor Coalition for Equal Votes (ICEV) include the New York City Comptroller's Office and the Washington State Investment Board. Companies with dual-class structures have two or...

June 13, 2022
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10Jun

The Missing Middle. How Tax Incentives for Retirement Savings Leave Middle-Class Families Behind

By Tyler Bond and & Doonan Saving for retirement is one of the biggest financial challenges most working Americans will face. While the vast majority will participate in Social Security, most will have less than half of their income replaced by Social Security in retirement. Therefore, many workers also will need to save for retirement through other plans, such as an employer-provided defined benefit pension plan or 401(k) plan, or on their own through an Individual Retirement Account (IRA). Congress...

June 10, 2022
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10Jun

U.S. prohibits investors from buying Russian debt, stocks

U.S. investors are prohibited from buying both new and existing debt and equity securities issued by an entity in the Russian Federation, according to new Treasury Department guidance. The guidance released Monday clarifies that executive orders signed this year by President Joe Biden encompass bans on Americans purchasing all Russian debt and Russian company shares. U.S. investors are still allowed to hold Russian securities they already hold and purchasing shares in a U.S. fund that contains Russian debt or equity securities...

June 10, 2022
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10Jun

US. Are Retirement Savings Tax Incentives Leaving the Middle Class Behind?

A new report by the National Institute on Retirement Security highlights the insufficiencies of current tax incentives in ensuring retirement security for the middle class. It includes marginal tax rates, retirement plan participation and income distribution on retirement savings levels as culpable factors. The report, “The Missing Middle: How Tax Incentives for Retirement Savings Leave Middle Class Families Behind,” also offers potential solutions that could enhance retirement security for middle-class families. Saving for retirement is one of the biggest financial challenges...

June 10, 2022
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09Jun

Factors Influencing the Choice of Pension Distribution at Retirement

By Robert L. Clark & Olivia S. Mitchell One of the most important financial decisions that pension participants make concerns how they access their pension assets when they terminate employment with their plan sponsor. Their choices depend both on own preferences and the options offered by their retirement plan. This paper examines both past and future pension withdrawal choices for those with defined benefit and defined contribution pensions, separately. Our data are drawn from a set of pension distribution questions...

June 9, 2022
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09Jun

US. Senate committee approves nominees to Fed, SEC

The Senate Banking Committee on Wednesday advanced a Federal Reserve Board of Governors nominee and two Securities and Exchange Commission nominees. Michael S. Barr, President Joe Biden's nominee as the Fed's vice chairman for supervision, and Jaime E. Lizarraga and Mark T. Uyeda, the president's nominees to the SEC, were each approved by the committee Wednesday. The three nominees testified jointly before the committee in May. Mr. Barr, a law professor at the University of Michigan who served as the Treasury...

June 9, 2022
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08Jun

US. Senators introduce SECURE 2.0 companion

Less than two weeks after releasing a discussion draft, leaders of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee introduced a retirement security bill that will likely serve as a piece of the Senate's SECURE 2.0 package. Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash., committee chairwoman, and Richard Burr-R-N.C., the committee's ranking member, introduced the Retirement Improvement and Savings Enhancement to Supplement Healthy Investments for the Nest Egg Act, or RISE & SHINE Act, and said their committee will markup the bill on...

June 8, 2022
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08Jun

US. Corporate Pension Health Continues to Worsen in May

U.S. corporate pension plans ended May with a drop in their aggregate funded status — a simple measure of their financial health. The funded ratio for U.S. corporate pension plans decreased by 0.9 percentage points from April 30 to May 31, according to Wilshire’s May 2022 U.S. corporate pension plans funding report. Specifically, the aggregate funded ratio of the combined assets and liabilities of corporate pension plans sponsored by S&P 500 companies dropped from 98 percent at the end of...

June 8, 2022
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