All articles by Maria Teresa Cometto – Page 7
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Opinion Pieces
Glide paths and targets
Target-date funds (TDFs) are so popular in the US that even the nation’s largest defined contribution (DC) pension system – the $400bn (€290bn) Thrift Savings Plan, the 401(k)-style retirement plan for federal staff – is thinking of making its TDF the default option for new employees. But with an increasingly diverse array of TDFs, concern is growing among plan sponsors and advisers about the level of fiduciary responsibility involved.
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Opinion Pieces
Retirement saving boost
Who will manage the new My Retirement Account (MyRA) retirement savings vehicle? This is a big question for the US pension fund industry now that President Barack Obama has created the new programme.
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Opinion Pieces
Intriguing opportunities
De-risking strategies are likely to become more popular with US corporate pension funds now they have reached their healthiest state since the crisis. This trend has been ongoing for the last couple of years but may substantially accelerate in 2014, says consultancy Towers Watson.
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Opinion Pieces
Time to face facts
The Detroit bankruptcy ruling and the new bookkeeping rules from the Government Accounting Standards Board (GASB) could trigger a wave of changes for the US state and local pension funds this year. Government leaders struggling with budget problems, bondholders that lend money to municipalities and states, and unions that negotiate pension benefits all have to deal with the impact.
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Opinion Pieces
Not ready yet
‘Retirement readiness’ is the catch phrase of 2014 in the US pension industry.
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Opinion Pieces
Too big to fail?
Are US asset management firms ‘too big to fail’? In other words, do they represent systemic risks similar to those posed by the largest banks, so much that they must be subject to ‘enhanced’ supervision?
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Opinion Pieces
Activist stances
US public pension funds are slowly recovering from their worst years, 2008-09, when their assets fell to a low of $2.1trn (€1.6trn). In the latest fiscal year ending 30 June 2013, assets increased 8.4%
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Opinion PiecesThe assets of healthcare
A trend that has already taken place in pensions is now happening in the healthcare sector in the US
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Opinion PiecesRetirement on course
Five years after the Lehman collapse, Americans’ retirement savings look like they have overcome the shock and are growing steadily. In fact they’ve reached the record amount of $20.8trn (€15.7trn) according to the latest data published by the Investment Company Institute (ICI), the national association of US investment companies.
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Opinion Pieces
OTPP looks east
The CAD129.5bn (€96.4bn) Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP) believes it is one of the best managed pension funds in the world. To remain that way, it is looking east for growth and is adjusting to the new demographic trends, but not abandoning its defined benefit (DB) model.
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Opinion Pieces
Fink’s nod to Australia
Are mandatory saving accounts coming to the US? It looks possible after BlackRock chairman and CEO, Laurence Fink, said they should be part of a comprehensive solution to the retirement funding crisis.
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from the US: Retirement concerns
“Our priority is to be sure that Americans save enough for retirement,” explains CEO and executive director of the American Society of Pension Professionals & Actuaries (ASPPA), Brian Graff. The problem is that Americans are not saving enough, because of the way pension plans are offered and structured, and because of the economic situation.
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Opinion Pieces
Step-change for DC
“Our retirement philosophy is changing the industry”. So says Glenn Dial, head of retirement for Allianz Global Investors (AGI). Dial has been in charge of this business in the US since February 2011, focusing on a target-date strategy that is reinforced by the findings from AGI’s Centre for Behavioural Finance.
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Opinion Pieces
Big picture questions
BlackRock, the world’s largest money manager, has reached a record $3.8trn (€2.8trn) in assets, about 60% of which is for institutional clients, including pensions. CEO Larry Fink, commenting on his firm’s 2012 results, said that the institutional business will launch a “strategic client programme” this year.
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from the US: Back from the edge
If there was a clear message from the whole ‘fiscal cliff’ debate, it is that social security will be affected sooner or later. Employees need to realise that company-sponsored pension plans will become an even more important supplement to their retirement income.
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from the US: Battle of the benefits
Obama’s healthcare reform will be the biggest new law affecting US companies in 2013. But will it have an impact on pension funds? Healthcare and retirement benefits are managed separately, but a change in costs for the former will eventually affect the latter.
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from the US: Pension uncertainties
Social Security reform was notably absent from the 2012 US presidential campaign.
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from the US: Colleges count losses
US college and university endowments had the worst returns of any insitutional investor in the year ended 30 June 2012
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Opinion Pieces
LIBOR litigation looms
US pension funds are still trying to understand the impact of the LIBOR scandal on their assets to assess whether they should launch a class action against the banks involved in the case. The matter is highly complex and could lead to tens of billions of dollars in claims, not just from pension funds but also from cities, states, lenders, insurers and other investors who say they were hurt by the allegedly manipulated rates.
