All Features articles – Page 16
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Features
Nuffield Health scheme boosts security with ABF
Not-for-profit healthcare provider Nuffield Health has entered into an asset-backed funding arrangement for its £377.1m defined benefit pension fund, as schemes continue to secure benefits with tangible goods.
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Features
What can we expect from the Autumn Budget?
Analysis: The chancellor’s Autumn Budget is fast approaching, but the industry should not expect any radical pension changes from a weak government bogged down by Brexit, experts say.
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Features
EDP valuation finds liability overstatement
The £7.8m Electronic Data Processing scheme has avoided a £420,000 addition to its liabilities, after a finalised actuarial valuation corrected an overstatement for certain deferred members.
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Features
Raising trustee standards: How can the regulator cast its net wider?
Analysis: Member-nominated trustees' level of familiarity with the Pensions Regulator's expectations varies significantly from scheme to scheme, so how can the commitment and understanding shown by some boards be extended across the pensions universe?
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Features
Reuters adds MAC fund as trend expected to continue
The Reuters Pension Fund has invested in a second multi-asset credit fund and dropped a loans fund, as the lure of high risk-adjusted returns continues to draw investors to MAC products.
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Features
Nottinghamshire to create portals for improved admin
The Nottinghamshire County Council Pension Fund is implementing portals for both employers and members as part of a push to improve administration across the scheme.
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Features
Could a shift in AE contributions balance raise saving levels?
Analysis: As questions remain over the adequacy of auto-enrolment contributions, a shift in the balance between employers and employees might provide the answer towards raising retirement saving levels.
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Features
Can multinationals achieve consistency in benefits?
Analysis: Multinational companies often run several complex pension schemes across multiple jurisdictions, but different tax and benefit rules around the world can pose various problems for companies looking to achieve consistency in benefits.
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Features
Greater Manchester impact investment to build 2,000 homes
The £21.3bn Greater Manchester Pension Fund is in the latter stages of concluding a series of impact investment deals, worth about £100m, which will build roughly 2,000 local homes.
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Features
Worcestershire looks overseas for infrastructure
The Worcestershire County Council Pension Fund has agreed to split £150m equally between two new overseas infrastructure funds, in the latest stage of an infrastructure investment programme that has run since 2015.
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Features
Structured equity appeals but ‘not a no-risk strategy’
Analysis: For some time now, financial punters have prescribed passive investment as the low-cost panacea for investors bloodied by years of underwhelming active management.
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Features
Slide towards retail investing faces backlash
Pensions Expert 20th Anniversary: March 19 2014 marked a seismic change in the UK pensions landscape: from the dispatch box in the House of Commons, future newspaper editor George Osborne announced the removal of the requirement to annuitise defined contribution savings, unlocking a world of possibility for scheme members.
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Features
Wholesale changes to rules are needed to enable DB consolidation
Pensions Expert 20th Anniversary: Amalgamating defined benefit corporate pension funds could reduce costs, improve investment and make for better governance, but it is still unclear whether full DB consolidation is a chimera or the fix to a fragmented system.
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Features
Better data flow could transform pensions, but will it?
Pensions Expert 20th Anniversary: A yawning technology gap has long been identified in the sector, but many feel more than the dashboard is needed to drag pensions into the 21 century.
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Features
Should schemes engage in more shareholder activism?
Analysis: Facebook has cancelled its plan to issue a new type of non-voting shares following pressure from investors, but some have said UK pension funds lack the size to exert similar influence.
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Features
How will regulation need to change to be fit for the 21st century?
Pensions Expert 20th Anniversary: When the world’s first funded occupational pension plan appeared towards the end of the 16th century in the form of a large iron chest, its success was short-lived.
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Features
Royal Insurance Group overhauls trustee board
The Royal Insurance Group Pension Scheme has reduced its trustee board size and changed the way member-nominated trustees are appointed, saying the move will save costs and make governance more efficient.
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Features
Where should tomorrow’s schemes allocate their assets?
Pensions Expert 20th Anniversary: In 1997, globalisation and increased investor sophistication powered a bull market that was meant to stretch beyond the confines of a regular business cycle.
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Features
How valuable are transition managers?
Analysis: Last week, State Street agreed to pay approximately $35m (£26m) to settle a pair of complaints by the Securities and Exchange Commission that it defrauded six institutional investors while conducting transition management services.*
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Features
What can pension schemes learn from insurers?
Analysis: Prudent liability management features among the priorities of pension funds and insurers alike. Experts have previously called upon investors to think more like insurers, but differences in objectives, regulatory requirements and scale mean that total strategic convergence between schemes and insurers is unlikely.