LDI: how we got to now

Reading Time: 9 minutes Well well well. I’m sat here on a Sunday afternoon at the end of quite a week. Heading into the office Monday morning I had little idea that we would potentially be caught up in a serious market event that had global ramifications, and at the heart of it all would be the risk management … More LDI: how we got to now

Two Days Among Actuaries

Reading Time: 4 minutes Just back from a couple of great  (sunny!) days in Edinburgh for the institute of actuaries conference which importantly this year incorporated pensions, investment and risk components together for the first time. Quite a lot of interesting takeaways and observations from around the industry. As Marian Elliott said in the first session  “To the worm … More Two Days Among Actuaries

LDI (again!)

Reading Time: < 1 minute I’ve been talking a lot about LDI recently, for example see here and here, and these posts are popular- being among my most viewed this year! No particular catalyst for this I don’t think but it is interesting to look back and chart the expansion of what has become a significant part of the industry … More LDI (again!)

Changing Times – 50 Years of UK Pensions

Reading Time: 3 minutes A lot has changed since 1962, particularly in the world of finance and pensions. UBS recently published a weighty tome containing some fascinating data on global markets and pension funds: A long-term perspective on pension fund investment Worth a read, one thing I found particularly interesting was the long-term data going back 50 years on … More Changing Times – 50 Years of UK Pensions

Modern Day ALM – Get in the Mix

Reading Time: 4 minutes Asset Liability Modelling (“ALM”) sure has come a long way since Frank Redington began talking about the interest rate immunization of life office books in the 1950s, or since models such as the Wilkie Model were first developed to deal with need for stochastic projection of economic variables for insurance companies and later pension funds. Today … More Modern Day ALM – Get in the Mix

It’s good to hedge*

Reading Time: 4 minutes There has been a flurry of activity in the longevity swap market over the last 12 months culminating in the mammoth £16bn transaction announced in July 2014 between the BTPS and Prudential. We appear to be seeing a big increase in the size of individual deals, as well as the overall number of deals. Why … More It’s good to hedge*