UK Comment
-
NewsViewpoint: Australia’s retirement savings model is shaping the UK’s investment future
Deeper pensions and investment ties between Australia and the UK make sense, says Gregg McClymont, IFM Investors’ executive director of public affairs, EMEA
-
Opinion PiecesThree years on from the LDI crisis, has the UK pension industry learned its lesson?
This issue of IPE goes to press almost exactly three years after the UK pension industry was thrown into disarray by what many remember as the ‘LDI crisis’. On 23 September 2022, then British chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng announced sweeping tax cuts that prompted a frenzied sell-off ...
-
Opinion PiecesUK pensions and private markets: the Mansion House Accord’s promise and perils
The task of channeling more UK DC pension savings towards domestic private markets is fraught with institutional, regulatory and cultural obstacles
-
Opinion PiecesEurope must forge its own trade relations policy with China – without relying on the US
Iran has recently been in the headlines, but while its relations with the US have ramifications across the Middle East, the more profound longer-term issue may be America’s relationship with China, as Washington beats the drum of a new cold war with Beijing.
-
Opinion PiecesShould UK pension funds re-embrace home investment bias?
UK pension funds could be part of a broader, coordinated investment drive to fuel the growth of the country’s internationally unloved small and mid-cap companies
-
Opinion PiecesViewpoint: UK pension reform promises hang on data innovation
But it will fall to industry to address the grim state of pensions portability, says Max Lack of Heka Global
-
Opinion PiecesDomestic investment bias is back: sow’s ear or silk purse?
Pension funds now have a very large dollop of geopolitical risk to contend with at a time when many are under some degree of pressure, overt or otherwise, to invest more domestically.
-
Opinion PiecesDenmark’s pension funds offer a template for an innovative defence investments play
The tone of Europe’s political debate on defence expenditure has shifted markedly this year. And as former Netherlands defence minister Kajsa Ollongren, put it in a Chatham House Q&A in early March: “The mindset should be ‘war economy’.”
-
Opinion PiecesUK fiduciary management industry needs to expand
The idea that too much choice limits freedom, known as the paradox of choice, is a powerful one. But the opposite is true as well, especially when it comes to the UK fiduciary management industry.
-
Opinion PiecesViewpoint: How a DB ‘surplus code’ could support economic growth
David Wrigley, partner at LCP, says supporting the appropriate release of surpluses could provide a shot in the arm to the UK economy
-
Opinion PiecesViewpoint: Stewardship deserves a return to first principles
As the UK’s Financial Reporting Council consults on updates to the country’s Stewardship Code, Hans-Christoph Hirt, trustee director of the Hermes Group Pension Scheme, says it’s time for the investment industry to have an open conversation about the objectives of stewardship
-
Opinion PiecesCan UK DC pension schemes plug the venture capital funding gap?
Europe is becoming an exciting place for tech start-ups, but they are receiving little support from European pension funds, which have eschewed venture capital since the bursting of the dotcom bubble in the late 1990s.
-
Opinion PiecesViewpoint: Mapping a pathway to adequate retirement incomes for all
The UK is facing a looming retirement crisis. As many as 17 million people are not saving enough for later life.
-
Opinion PiecesWhy we need to talk about the birthrate
If you live in a big city like London, and if you look hard enough, you are sure to find signs of a falling birthrate.
-
Opinion PiecesViewpoint: Reeves must acknowledge infrastructure challenges
The integration of illiquid asset classes into pension funds introduces a host of technological, operational and structural challenges that must be addressed
-
Opinion PiecesViewpoint: How trustees can protect against the ESG backlash
Jennifer Miles and Samuel Fulda, partner and associate at Eversheds Sutherland, respectively, outline how trustees can protect themselves in the event of anti-ESG litigation
-
Opinion PiecesWhy the green transition throws up workforce and pension challenges
Pensions are a hot topic in corporate Germany, where skills shortages and an ageing workforce have led to a war for talent, as well as a renaissance in occupational retirement provision in the fight for workforce skills.
-
Opinion PiecesStriking the right balance on pension funds and fiduciary duty
Pension fund investment principles, strategies and decision-making have all become more complex in the wake of the growth of sustainability factors in general and climate change in particular. This has made the interpretation and practice of trustee ‘fiduciary duties’ more vexed and challenging than ever. A recent review of fiduciary duties in the UK by the Financial Markets Law Committee (FMLC) put it this way: “It is sometimes easier to state the duties than it is to apply them.”
-
Opinion PiecesA template for innovation and investment opportunity in health services
Introducing innovations into entrenched organisations is always a challenge. No more so than in the UK’s much loved, much criticised and, many would argue, barely functioning National Health Service (NHS). Yet revolutions in AI and technology should be able to transform the NHS for the better in a cost-effective manner.
-
Opinion PiecesA thematic focus on sustainability
The evidence for global temperatures rises caused by human emissions of greenhouse gasses (GHGs) has become overwhelming. That means there will have to be a huge adaptation by human societies across the globe to the reality of significant climate changes in the next few decades.
