Reading Time: 4 minutes Human longevity is always somewhat of a double-edged sword for those tasked with paying a defined benefit pension: increases in healthy lifespan are of course welcome from a human perspective, but make the job of providing a pension for life that much harder. And longevity has been very hard to forecast with any accuracy: from … More Living Longer, and Prospering
Reading Time: 8 minutes The evidence is undeniable. We all have brains that are set-up to make consistently bad choices when it comes to domains that are complex, ambiguous and unpredictable – like investing. We overestimate our own ability, screen out information that conflicts with our pre-conceived views, we fear losses, and anchor to what feels well known and … More Better Behaviour by Design
Reading Time: 5 minutes 1. The Universal Owner Did you go to many investment conferences in 2018? You probably don’t need me to tell you that ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) considerations have been brought front and centre this year. I think this theme can be interpreted at a higher level in terms of how asset owners weigh externalities … More Three Ideas that Came of Age in 2018
Reading Time: 5 minutes I’m sure you can picture the scene. A group sits down to make a critically important decision. Much discussion follows. One person after another lays out their views, lots of points are made. There are some clear areas of agreement. Nods all round. The answer starts to become clear. With a few changes a consensus … More [Books] Wiser – how group decisions can let us down
Reading Time: 4 minutes McKinsey just published an excellent and comprehensive paper covering how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can deliver real value for business. tl;dr The only issue – at 80 pages it’s a lot to read. A lot of the use cases focus on retail, energy and education, one angle I find particularly are the read-across of these examples into … More One minute guide to real-world AI implementation
Reading Time: 5 minutes I really enjoyed this fantastic article which featured in the March issue of Harvard Business Review, and explores the Deloitte Business Chemistry model in relation to trying to understand differing work styles and team dynamics. I’d definitely recommend reading the article in full if you haven’t already. Pensions It got me wondering – how might … More Why a Focus on Personality Matters for a Better Pensions Team
Reading Time: 2 minutes “Expected returns don’t pay benefits, cash does” Anthony Hilton recently wrote a stinging attack on pension consultants -like myself- who advise defined benefit pension schemes to measure, and hedge, their liabilities with reference to gilt yields. Here’s one (of several) reasons why he’s wrong. His argument – that you could fund based on the much … More Why Anthony Hilton is Wrong on Pensions
Reading Time: 2 minutes It’s not been a good summer for the financial health of UK DB pension funds. Data released by the PPF in September underlined a summer of bad news for schemes and scheme sponsors. A continued trend of falling gilt yields have seen liability values increase dramatically – adding more than £200bn to the aggregate deficit … More Grim Summer for DB Pensions
Reading Time: < 1 minute DB Pensions News September 2016
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
