On the go: Shareholder activism is on the rise. Across Britain’s major companies in the FTSE 350, 148 annual meeting resolutions attracted ‘significant’ dissent levels across 82 different companies in 2018, recent research has shown. Executive pay and directors’ election were the top areas of concern.

One of pensions’ great conundrums is the question of whether the size of contributions or investment performance has the greater impact on the size of the pension pot. Hargreaves Lansdown has researched this very point, but its answers are not without controversy.

On the go: The UK’s fondness for pension freedoms continues unabated with £1.9bn withdrawn from pension schemes under flexible pension rules in the fourth quarter of 2018, according to the latest HMRC  figures published on Friday.

On the go: The cost of addressing inequality in guaranteed minimum pensions may be a lot lower than expected at less than 1 per cent of total liabilities for over half of all schemes, according to consultancy XPS Pensions.

On the go: Declining annuity sales are driven by individuals consistently underestimating how long they will live, according to new research form the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

On the go: The government has given Nest, the workplace pension provider, a contingent liability guarantee of £329m to enable it to comply with the tough new master trust regime amid accusations of unfair state aid. 

On the go: Inadequate retirement incomes that do not meet consumers’ expectations remain the central challenge for the pensions industry, according to the Financial Conduct Authority.

On the go: The EU’s financial regulator has warned of the impact charges can have on savers’ returns, in a sign of further pressure on investment managers to control fees.

Analysis: Once a distant dream for employers, full buyout is now becoming a reality for defined benefit sponsors, with up to 15 FTSE 100 companies already in a position to offload their liabilities to insurers.