All From Our Perspective articles – Page 5
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FeaturesFrom Our Perspective: Ready for action
Industry figures like Roger Urwin of Towers Watson have long advocated that pension funds should use their fee budget effectively according to their size and scale, perhaps foregoing costly alternative strategies in favour of recruiting in-house staff.
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Climate risk takes centre stage
This September’s United Nations Climate Change summit in New York combined political and show business razzmatazz with the gravitas of investors like Mats Andersson, CEO of Sweden’s AP4 pension fund, who addressed the UN General Assembly.
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Pension pot pitfalls
Like compulsory voting, compulsory pensions have not taken off to a great extent: Australia practices both, Switzerland has had mandatory supplementary pensions since the 1980s, and pensions are compulsory for most workers through collective labour agreements in the Netherlands.
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Pensions cart before the horse
It may come a surprise that the UK, Europe’s leading pension market by assets, has been one of the least innovative in terms of benefit design – something the present government is keen to rectify.
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Falling (further) behind
“Pensions are safe”, Germany’s one-time pensions minister, Norbert Blüm, famously said in the 1990s. That ill-judged statement still influences discussions about the German state pension system even today.
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Warning: contents may vary
Michel Barnier, the European Commissioner for the internal market, seems determined to end his period in office with a blizzard of activity ahead of this month’s European Par- liament elections. The (much watered down) draft directive for IORP II and a paper on long-term financing of the European economy were closely followed by a draft directive revising shareholder rights legislation, complete with a controversial proposal for a mandatory say-on-pay vote at EU listed companies.
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Back to basics
The Herculean task of harmonising the funding rules for Europe’s defined benefit pension schemes has been officially decoupled from the planned IORP II Directive, to the relief of all those who would have to deal with the complex analytical framework needed to coordinate the rules. That framework would almost certainly have led to lower risk tolerance and a mass exodus from risk assets on the part of European pension funds.
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Spread wealth with caution
Back in the days when the roar of Ireland’s Celtic tiger economy echoed across Europe and the wider world, the country was widely praised for its foresight in 2001 when it created a sovereign fund, the National Pension Reserve Fund, with the proceeds of the sale of Telecom Eireann.
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Expect more scrutiny on systemic relevance
A transformation is taking place in the five-year performance track records of countless investment funds and strategies as this year fades out and the impact of the market collapse of late 2008 is erased.
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Spotlight on money doctors
Holding investment consultants to account is a healthy exercise. And indeed, one recent study on investment consultants’ recommendations has attracted headlines and controversy.
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FeaturesPolish reform: A lot not to like
Managers of Polish pension funds can at least be grateful their industry has not been entirely nationalised
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Webb’s policy challenges
The achievement may seem modest, but September 2013 marks 40 months since Steve Webb became pensions minister, a junior post within the UK’s Department for Work and Pensions, but one with far-reaching influence over the design, structure and, by extension, asset allocation of occupational pensions in UK.
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End to the first act
Six years since the idea was first raised, the European Commission has finally drawn a curtain on its proposal to apply rigid risk-based solvency requirements – pillar one of Solvency II – on occupational pension funds in IORP II. At least for now, since Michel Barnier, the commissioner for the single market, has made it clear that this is a postponement, not a policy abandonment.
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Motherhood and apple pie
Perhaps it should not be a too much of a surprise that 68% of Swiss people voted in a national referendum in March in favour of a motion against ‘rip-off’ executive salaries.
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Two sides of the longevity balance sheet
For Peter Drucker, writing in the Harvard Business Review in 1997, demographics were “the future that has already happened”.
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Scrutiny: it’s here to stay
If you were to organise a people’s initiative against being ripped off, you might be guaranteed some measure of success. The fact that the people allegedly doing the ripping off are highly-paid executives makes the issue all the more piquant.
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Not too hot, not too cold
“The Union has today set itself a new strategic goal for the next decade: to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion.”
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Risk ahead!
“When we understand that slide, we’ll have won the war.” General Stanley McChrystal is supposed to have said this in 2010 when commenting on a PowerPoint slide outlining the risks of the US army’s engagement in Afghanistan.
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NewsFrom Our Perspective: Better the virtuous circle
Pension funds are urgently needed to finance the jobs and growth Europe desperately needs.
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Better the virtuous circle
In theory, insurers, pension funds, endowments and other long-term investors will match their liability stream with long-term investments in the productive economy. So, over several economic cycles, their investments fund their liabilities, but their investments in government debt also help pay for the roads and schools that benefit current and future members and pensioners. Their equity and corporate-bond investments finance company growth and foster employment. Property and infrastructure investments help them attain real, inflation-linked cashflows, while also financing long-term economic expansion.
