Latest analysis – Page 67
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Opinion Pieces
Ratings war
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’ Retirement System (CalPERS), the largest state pension fund in the US, to go ahead with a lawsuit against Moody’s, S&P and Fitch, which it claims caused it to lose about $1bn (€809m) because of inaccurate ratings. The other development is the US Senate’s approval of an amendment to the financial reform proposed by Florida Republican George LeMieux and Washington Democrat Maria Cantwell to remove references to the raters from the laws governing securities and banking.
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Opinion Pieces
Worse than it looks
The forthcoming loss of Jörgen Holmquist, director general, and David Wright, deputy director-general, two of the most senior and experienced officials from the European Commission’s division responsible for legislation for the banking, insurance, free movement of capital, pensions and capital reserves sectors is bad enough. But accusations that there is a shortage of personnel preparing a “crazy number of legislative initiatives” make the losses worse in this time of crisis.
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Features
Funds boost engagement
Pension funds have stepped up their corporate engagement processes in 2010 with the widely-backed campaign for more disclosure on the costs and impacts of Canadian oil sands projects.
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Features
Preparing for the challenges ahead
The recent Global Pension Survey highlights a number of positive changes that pension fund managers are implementing to develop a business model that works in bull and bear markets alike. Changing demographics, pensions reforms in mature economies and fickle financial markets are creating strong tail-winds. But the ride will be ...
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Opinion Pieces
The state we are in
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 their members’ unions: if the unions refuse to accept radical reforms in order to reduce the growing fund deficits, the current funding crisis will become explosive, say two new reports by independent research institutes. The budget season and the November elections are helping to draw attention to this vital issue.
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Opinion Pieces
IORPs back on agenda
A planned wide-ranging green paper on the state of pensions in the EU is causing anxiety in the industry. The ‘holistic’ approach of the European Commission policy paper – due to be presented in the summer – could throw into question the current ceasefire over the solvency issue for the ...
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Features
Cautious optimism in first GPS study
The first Global Pensions Survey (GPS) got off to a good start in February in the first phase of its launch, with a total of 78 European pension fund respondents from 16 countries in the initial round.
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Features
Irish reforms under fire
More than two years after the Irish government first published its green paper on reforms to the pension system, the National Pensions Framework has been unveiled, proposing increases in state retirement age and auto-enrolment into pensions.
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Opinion Pieces
Boost to derivatives legislation
Flesh is being added to the bones of the proposed regulation to cover legislation of the vast derivatives markets in the EU, and the European Parliament’s EP Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee (ECON) is generally welcoming of the tough stance put forward by its co-ordinating MEP.
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Opinion Pieces
Derivatives not WMD
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 trades. President Obama has promised reforms that would fix problems in the derivatives market, starting with trading all derivatives onto transparent exchanges.
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Features
EC’s pensions paper aims ‘unclear’
Pensions are on the European Commission’s radar again, and three divisions have been given the task of preparing a Green Paper on the creation of an EU framework for pensions by the middle of this year. Pension fund bodies and consultants say they welcome the move to talk about encouraging pensions savings. But there is apprehension about the possible content and concerns about the Commission’s aims, in part because there appears to be a degree of urgency to the process.
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Features
Changes ahead for Dutch pensions
Dutch pension fund governance and investment risk strategies have rarely faced such tough scrutiny. Following the publication of the Frijns and Goudswaard Committees’ reports, as well as evidence of closer oversight on the part of the supervisor, De Nederlansche Bank (DNB), a number of initiatives and recommendations are expected to ...
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Features
Pension fund returns bounce back in 2009
Improvements in global markets from March 2009 resulted in the majority of European pension funds posting double-digit investment returns by the end of the year.
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Features
Finland mulls reforms
The Finnish government and labour market organisations are evaluating reform proposals made by two working groups aiming to identify ways of increasing working life and raising the retirement age. The working groups were set up after the agreement between social partners and the government in March 2009 to increase the ...
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Opinion PiecesAutomatic for the people
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 is approved by the Congress.
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Opinion Pieces
Capital is not a panacea
Brussels, the Basel Committee, and other regulators striving to increase the minimum reserves of the banks have apparently got it wrong. Regulators wanting to reduce the risk of a further financial and economic crisis should concentrate their efforts somewhere else, according to the European Banking Federation (EBF).
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Features
Pensions claw back returns in 2009
European pension funds performed significantly better in 2009 as continued market rallies in the second half of the year allowed schemes to post double-digit returns. Schemes in the Netherlands reported improvements as pension fund cover ratios pulled back to an average 111% by the end of 2009, according to statistics ...
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Opinion Pieces
EFRP sets out its stall
The European Federation for Retirement Provision (EFRP) has called for a more logical, thought-out and co-ordinated approach to pensions policy in the European Union in its strategy paper, “Beyond the crisis: Workplace Pensions”.
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Opinion Pieces
Funds lead reform calls
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 such as pension funds are stepping forward to push for change – both at the political level as well ...
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Features
DC risk sharing and how to go about it
The investment losses suffered in the last two years of downturn have inspired new thinking – not least on how to improve the risk-return profile of defined contribution (DC) pension investing and how to secure cheap DC guarantees. Many of these ideas were discussed at a conference on DC risk-sharing in January hosted at The University of Exeter Business School. And they could be useful to the pension regimes of most countries, according to participants.
