Monthly Archives: May 2023
Selling swimming trunks when the tide goes out (a cautionary blog).
Today should be an interesting one , I can spend much of it listening to others talk about why pension funds should be giving money to managers who invest not in public stock markets (where we can see what’s … Continue reading
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Tagged ft, Howard Marks, Private credit, swimming trunks, Warren Buffet
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Pension Innovation – Stefan Lundbergh on an admin revolution waiting to happen
Stefan Lundbergh Pensions administration is probably the least glamorous part of the pensions industry. It is far from the headlines of the latest sustainable investment strategy, and individuals who thought that accounting was too exciting are over-represented among its … Continue reading
Good governance and outcomes – Rona Train looks into the crocodile’s belly.
The latest VFM podcast from Darren Philp and Nico Aspinall is out and this week’s features governance expert – Rona Train. Rona is a consultant at Hymans Robertson. It’s an enjoyable listen, if a little pedestrian. The cutting edge of … Continue reading
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Giving employers a helping hand on pensions.
The UK puts an unusual burden on employers to offer workplace pensions to their staff. Employers, big and small have risen to the challenge they faced from auto-enrolment and now manage the payroll interface for their staff’s contributions as … Continue reading
Linked in – stop blowing smoke up my bum
I am bored of Linked in encouraging me to take out premium membership to expand my network. “You’re getting noticed” – it tells me. But what’s the point of that if you spend half your time on the site managing … Continue reading
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If you can’t choose on price…what? The employer’s dilemma – choosing pensions for staff
The FCA ,TPR and DWP have made it clear that they are uncomfortable that workplace pensions are being chosen on price. There are good reasons for this, the first of which is that low-price usually correlates with poor investment and … Continue reading
Should we mandate DC pension funds to invest in illiquids?
On Monday, I’ll be questioning Nick Lyons, Chair of Phoenix and Lord Mayor of the City of London on his plans to create a £100bn tech and pharma fund for UK DC pensions to invest in. He suggests that 5% … Continue reading
DB Scheme Funding: Some Empirical Results and Consideration
We have been collecting the reported funding ratios of DB schemes since December 2022. Through this analysis we are finding some fairly large discrepancies between reported funding ratios and the widely broadcast narrative of highly significant improvements of those … Continue reading
Capita admits 470,000 academics’ pension data hacked
Three of Capita’s servers were hacked in March of this year. The Sunday Times put the hack on its front page in April and since then Capita has been reporting on its cyber incident. You can read the details on … Continue reading
The Pension Institute denies LDI had victims; opinion or research?
I have just been asked to read a report on the LDI crisis that draws the following conclusions To read this Pension Institute discussion paper “Liability-Driven-Investment-a-Victimless-Disaster“. It is written by Keith Wallace , a lawyer with an impressive CV but … Continue reading