Letter from the US
Getting its Act together
02 Sep 2010
US pension funds won two important battles in the debate that led to the approval of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act in July. One is concern over the use of swaps to hedge plan risks, and the...
Cash Balance
01 Jul 2010
Coca-Cola is the latest big US company to convert its final salary pension plan to cash balance, thereby becoming part of a trend highlighted in a recent survey of the Fortune 100 companies by...
Ratings war
02 Jun 2010
Two new developments in the recent rating agency drama could radically change the way pension funds manage their bond portfolios. One is the a court decision allowing the California Public Employees’ ...
The state we are in
01 May 2010
In the US, most defined benefit (DB) pension schemes are public and their members are employees of states, municipalities and other local administrations. Their future to a great extent depends on...
Derivatives not WMD
01 Apr 2010
Derivatives, and credit-default swaps in particular, have become synonymous with Wall Street wrongdoings, and in Europe authorities want to tightly regulate them, even ban speculative derivative...
Automatic for the people
01 Mar 2010
US money managers could receive an estimated $100bn (€73bn) over five years to invest on behalf of the 78m workers who do not have a pension – 50% of US employees – if a proposal by the White House...
Funds lead reform calls
01 Feb 2010
As Wall Street prepares to pay some of the fattest bonuses ever to its bankers and Congress remains some way from approving any substantial reform of the financial system, institutional investors...
The sands shift
04 Jan 2010
December 2009 may have marked the end of the downturn in US for the job market and retirement savings, after two very tough years. There were signs of stabilisation with companies starting to hire...
Fund fees challenged
01 Dec 2009
Mutual funds managed $1.8trn (€1.2trn), or 48%, of assets in 401(k) and other defined contribution plans in the US as of end-June 2009. Annual management fees earned were more than $10bn but these...
Pensions re-think
02 Nov 2009
As the drive to reform private pensions in the US gathers pace, features of the UK’s forthcoming personal accounts system – which includes mandatory automatic enrolment, prohibition of fund...
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