From the blog: The race to become the largest public pension fund has really started. Just as everyone is slowing down for the holidays, looking at what’s coming up next year or finally doing the admin tasks they had put off for the past 10 months, last week eight Midlands funds were the first to say they will have the size the chancellor envisaged when he threw the pooling ball into the LGPS playing field.
The funds said they will exceed the minimum £25bn by £10bn, which makes for a very large pool indeed.
Having six mega funds rather than 89 smaller ones is in line with the nation’s newly found pride in – well, everything apart from rugby.
Even closer to the holiday shut-down, Legal & General has let us know it has completed another medically underwritten bulk annuity deal – the UK’s largest to date – and rushed in just before Solvency II takes effect in January.
The two news items are unrelated, but indicative of an overall trend: pension assets and/or liabilities are being wrapped up together and used to create a single, larger, hence more powerful investor.
Big is beautiful in investments it seems – and in anything Christmas-related too, so let’s enjoy the festive break.
Merry Christmas and a happy New Year from all of us at Pensions Expert!
