The use of leverage in liability-driven investments should be reassessed, according to respondents to a Work and Pensions Committee inquiry.

Analysis: The pensions industry spends extensively on member communications, but 48 per cent of employees do not know how much their employer is paying into their pension, according to a survey by The People’s Pension.

The Pension Protection Fund is expecting some schemes to have a deterioration in funding due to the forced selling of assets in response to market turmoil, despite the overall improvement in the defined benefit sector, its chief finance officer and chief actuary has said.

On the go: The £13mn Musicians’ Union Permanent Officials and Staff Pension Fund has agreed a full buyout with Aviva.

On the go: The Financial Conduct Authority has urged managers of liability-driven investment funds to learn the lessons of the autumn liquidity crisis, claiming that liquidity buffers represent only part of the solution to future volatility.

The Pensions Regulator’s lead investment consultant, Fred Berry, has suggested that industry ‘groupthink’ may have played a part in creating the conditions for the liquidity crisis that engulfed defined benefit pension schemes in the autumn.

The Pensions Regulator has set out its expectation that liquidity buffers be maintained across pooled and leveraged liability-driven investment mandates, going beyond the demands of Irish and Luxembourgish regulators.

On the go: The £4bn Balfour Beatty Pension Fund has signed a £1.7bn longevity swap transaction with Zurich Assurance and Scor.

The Bank of England’s bond market intervention was determined by the lack of ability of liability-driven investment pooled funds to receive the liquidity needed from schemes to rebalance in a short period of time, Andrew Bailey has revealed.