Reading Time: 2 minutes I was fortunate enough to present at the Professional Pensions conference The Future of Pensions Consulting on 3 November 2015, which was an engaging day which ranged over a really interesting array of topics, from employee engagement in DC to the possible outcomes of an EU referendum. I’ll spoke about LDI, which is an issue very close to my … More LDI – the First 12 Years
Reading Time: 2 minutes The PPF today published its monthly estimates of scheme funding position for the schemes in the PPF 7800 index. Not surprisingly, given the market moves over September 2015, and over the third quarter generally we saw a 5% decline in funded status over the quarter due to both declining asset values and increasing liabilities. It’s … More Mind the gap – funding levels fall as market volatility hits assets
Reading Time: 2 minutes In the longevity-hedging space, 2015 is on track to match 2014 as a record year for the total volume of hedging deals, highlighting the significance of this area within the pensions space. Following the Scottish & Newcastle deal in September 2015, the widely followed artemis.bm blog listed c£30bn of liabilties hedged so far in 2015 compared … More Live Long & Hedge?
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
Reading Time: 3 minutes We’ve been through an amazingly benign and profitable time for investors in many financial markets, something I discussed further here. That’s great to know, especially for those that participated. Not so helpful going forward. A better question is- What’s your expected future return from equities (and other assets)? Simple question, tricky answer. And one we … More Many Happy (Asset) Returns – part 2
Reading Time: < 1 minute We’ve experienced a rollercoaster ride so far this year when it comes to government bond yields. For pension funds that haven’t hedged this risk, this has meant a lot of volatility in their position coming from the liability side of their balance sheet from one month to the next. It’s amazing really that in the 8 … More Snakes, Ladders & Pension Deficits
Reading Time: 2 minutes It can be easy to forget when caught up in day-to-day events and headlines that we’ve been through an incredibly benign and profitable period for any individual or organisation investing in financial markets. One way of illustrating this, which we particularly like is to look not just at the returns that have been generated, but a measure … More Many Happy (Asset) Returns – part 1
Reading Time: 2 minutes As the UK Liability Driven Investing (LDI) market has grown over the last decade the KPMG LDI Survey “Navigating the LDI Market” has become a really useful tool for understanding the growth of the market at a high level and who the major players are from an asset management perspective. The latest version of the survey, … More LDI Continues to Thrive – 5 Takeaways from the KPMG Survey
Reading Time: 2 minutes Any pension scheme looking to produce a valuation as at 30 June 2015 is likely to be showing a more favorable overall position than they would have done in March 2015 or December 2014 (as demonstrated by data from the PPF 7800 index of pension funds updated to May 2015 below). The overall funding level … More Rates Rollercoaster Continues
Reading Time: 3 minutes I really feel that asset managers have stepped up their game in the last 12 months when it comes to posting content on twitter (I made this point in a previous post here), even the institutionally-focused managers who previously might not have seen much upside from the mass-market reach of twitter. I find good quality … More Which asset managers post the best content on twitter?
