All Consolidation articles – Page 10

  • News

    Regulator to issue rules for consolidators ‘in the coming weeks’

    2020-06-09T00:00:00Z

    The Pensions Regulator is shortly to issue interim regulation covering commercial consolidators, Pensions Expert can reveal.

  • Podcasts

    Podcast: 'Crystal ball-gazing' makes ethical investment tough for trustees

    2020-06-05T00:00:00Z

    Trustees aiming to make ethical investment decisions can find it tough to justify them without recourse to a crystal ball, as the legal requirements are ill-defined, says Irwin Mitchell’s pensions partner Penny Cogher. In this episode she’s joined by independent consultant and long-time pensions expert Malcolm McLean for a discussion covering capital-backed endgame deals, the complications of new insolvency laws, and some morally dubious LGPS investments.

  • News

    Regulator to issue new guidance on capital-backed endgame deals

    2020-05-26T00:00:00Z

    The Pensions Regulator is to issue new guidance on defined benefit employers seeking to use third-party investors to back the cost of buyout, following the completion of a first-of-a-kind deal without the need for regulatory clearance last week.

  • News

    PS Aspire pulls out of master trust market

    2020-05-05T00:00:00Z

    On the go: Punter Southall Aspire has withdrawn its master trust from the market after concluding that it was unlikely to reach the necessary scale.

  • News

    Opperman to legislate for DC consolidation

    2020-03-12T00:00:00Z

    On the go: The minister for pensions and financial inclusion has unveiled plans to force the consolidation of subscale defined contribution arrangements.

  • News

    Clara Pensions in talks with investors for new funding

    2020-03-12T00:00:00Z

    On the go: Clara Pensions is seeking to raise between £200m and £300m from new investors, after a first fundraising in 2018.

  • News

    LGPS pool chair: Fragmented system cannot continue

    2020-03-11T00:00:00Z

    On the go: The UK's private sector pension schemes will be forced to consolidate in the same way as the Local Government Pension Scheme, according to the chair of the Brunel Pension Partnership.

  • News

    Blue chips rush to offload DC pension plans to master trusts

    2020-03-04T00:00:00Z

    More and more blue-chip employers are looking to transfer their defined contribution pension plans to the new breed of master trusts. The Vodafone UK DC Pension Plan is the latest to move all members’ accounts, amounting to £1.4bn, into LifeSight. The transaction is expected to be finalised by the end of March 2020.

  • Opinion

    The biggest driver of change in DC

    2020-03-03T00:00:00Z

    Data Crunch: Over the past few years, defined contribution schemes have had to adapt to substantial changes introduced by the government and the regulators. 

  • News

    KPMG pensions spin-off targets industry modernisation

    2020-02-28T00:00:00Z

    On the go: KPMG’s former pensions advisory business has relaunched as Isio following its sale to a private equity backer, with the new company looking to grow its consolidation offering and improve the industry’s use of technology.

  • Podcasts

    Podcast: Regulator should take ‘softly-softly’ approach to DC consolidation

    2020-02-19T00:00:00Z

    Podcast: The Pensions Regulator should take a “softly-softly” approach to defined contribution consolidation, similar to what happened with master trusts during the authorisation process, where subtle conversations occurred and schemes decided to exit in an orderly manner, according to Adrian Boulding, director of policy at Now Pensions. He and Rosalind Connor, partner at Arc Pensions Law, discuss the response from the watchdog to its consultation of the future of trusteeship and governance, among other topics.

  • News

    Increased trustee workload to unleash wave of DC consolidation

    2020-02-18T00:00:00Z

    On the go: One in three trust-based defined contribution arrangements expects to transfer members into a master trust over the next five years, with stakeholders citing the drain on time and resources of running an own-trust solution.

  • News

    Trustees call for radical softening of DB promises

    2020-02-13T00:00:00Z

    On the go: The government should accept that not all defined benefit pensions are affordable and begin taking radical steps to allow employers to flex their promises, according to two prominent professional trustees.

  • News

    TPR to test trustees’ knowledge in bid to improve governance

    2020-02-07T00:00:00Z

    The Pensions Regulator plans to conduct checks on trustees’ knowledge to assure governance standards in the industry, and has promised to consider appropriate action where they fall below expectations.

  • Features

    Authorised master trusts look ahead to supervision

    2020-01-02T00:00:00Z

    The newly authorised master trust sector is bracing itself for a further increase in regulatory scrutiny as the supervision regime takes hold, since one-to-one supervision and annual statement requirements could amount to something approaching a “mini-authorisation” once a year.

  • News

    Four-fifths of FTSE 350 schemes eligible for consolidation

    2019-12-05T00:00:00Z

    On the go: More than four-fifths (84 per cent) of FTSE 350 companies’ defined benefit schemes are eligible to join a commercial consolidator, new research showed.

  • News

    PASA launches guidance for master trust consolidation

    2019-11-26T00:00:00Z

    On the go: The Pensions Administration Standards Association has launched guidance for master trusts to follow when considering consolidation.

  • News

    Consolidators unfazed after being dropped from pensions bill

    2019-10-15T00:00:00Z

    The two existing defined benefit commercial consolidators have said they are not surprised by the lack of superfund provisions in the pensions bill.

  • Frank Field
    News

    Field sounds alarm over unregulated DB superfunds

    2019-10-04T00:00:00Z

    The chair of the Work and Pensions Committee has warned that the government may be putting retirements at risk if it does not bring forward legislation to regulate defined benefit superfunds.

  • John Simmonds
    Opinion

    Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas

    2019-09-16T00:00:00Z

    Too much of the pensions industry serves its own interests rather than those of its members, says CEM Benchmarking’s John Simmonds. The problem, he argues, lies in the role of scale. But is bigger truly better when it comes to pensions?