Category Archives: David Pitt-Watson
“What’s expensive for a pension these days?”
Most UK pension people may still agree with you and see 0.9% as cheap but not me. It might have been cheap in 2000 and it certainly isn’t today! Continue reading
In the customer’s shoes; Dan Norman on our fund fiduciaries.
those charged with fiduciary responsibilities, including the managers themselves must, as Dan puts it “put themselves in their customers shoes” and start treating them fairly, Continue reading
No win no fee – one way to clean up asset management
I met yesterday with a Swiss firm whose business is to reduce the investment costs for large investors (typically with €500m +). The model is simple, no retainer – they receive 50% of the savings from their work. They are a … Continue reading
Should we measure pension fees as “risk”?
This is simple measure which makes such fundamental sense that any fool can grasp it. Continue reading
Better ways to diversify the default.
When people see the jigsaw being put together , we may even get better public confidence in workplace pension schemes – something devoutly to be hoped for! Continue reading
Poor execution – a pigsty – not a playpen
A researcher I was speaking to yesterday asked whether I considered the bad practices associated with the poor execution of trades by fund managers as criminal fraud. His argument was that indirect benefits such as the receiving of rugby tickets from … Continue reading
Johnson v Keating ; a pensions heavyweight title fight
There are two documents sitting on my desktop this morning. The first is a paper by Con Keating. Con believes that the best way of providing pensions is collectively through large organisations who are able to offer and keep future … Continue reading
DC Trustees – asleep at the wheel?
I was spending insomniac hours reading posts about savings on http://www.moneysavingexpert.com when I came upon a thread about the ABI 14 agreeing to disclose transactional costs from next summer. There wasn’t much on the comments board – one post stood out. … Continue reading
The dam is full – manage the sluices
It can’t be much fun at the ABI these days. The FSA are investigating mis-pricing of annuities, the OFT are studying the distribution insurers use for pensions and just about every consumerist from Gregg McClymont to the NAPF are calling … Continue reading
NEST Insight; what the 11m+ “unpensioned” think.
NEST has produced a chunky report that “takes the temperature of automatic enrolment”. This promises to be the first of a series and as the first has five years of accumulated insights to lay before us. I thoroughly recommend it … Continue reading