September 2019

27Sep

Japan. Investors Await Naming of CIO at World’s Largest Pension Fund

Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund will likely announce next week whether its chief investment officer will continue to manage the monolith’s $1.48 trillion in assets. Hiromichi Mizuno, whose term will end on Sept. 30, captained sweeping changes to the investment strategy of the world’s largest pension fund over the past five years. He became the GPIF’s first CIO in January 2015, overseeing the fund’s shift to stocks from domestic debt, while advocating assets that incorporate environmental, social and governance...

September 27, 2019
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26Sep

Fear of Retirement Poverty Drives Japanese to Private Pensions

Japanese households are rushing to private retirement products after a government report fueled fears that the national pension system won’t be enough to support them during old age. SBI Securities Co. and Monex Group Inc. have seen applications for defined contribution pension plans surge since the report was released in early June. The document, published on the Financial Services Agency’s website, sparked angst after showing that a couple in their sixties may need as much as 20 million yen...

September 26, 2019
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23Sep

Abe vows to improve Japan’s social welfare as population grays

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged Friday to step up efforts to reform social security as Japan faces a multitude of challenges stemming from its rapidly graying population and low birthrate. “Reform toward social security for all generations is the biggest challenge,” Abe said at the first meeting of a government panel tasked with dealing with the issues. “We will consider sustainable reforms for the entire social security system.” Abe instructed his Cabinet members, including Yasutoshi Nishimura, minister in charge...

September 23, 2019
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13Sep

How Making Smart Financial Decisions Can Have a Positive Impact on Climate Change

There’s a lot of responsibility that comes with managing a fund with $1.5 trillion in assets—a responsibility that Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF), the largest pension fund in the world, faces every day. We have more than 5,000 stocks and 3,400 bond issuers in our portfolio, and the fund is designed to operate with a 100-year, multi­generational time frame. Unlike investors with a shorter time horizon, we consider climate change to be a systemic risk affecting the entire...

September 13, 2019
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03Sep

Japan pension funds boost alternative assets in yield hunt, Mizuho says

Japanese pension funds are showing a growing appetite for investing in real estate and corporate debt as they seek higher returns in alternative assets amid ultra-low yields, the head of Mizuho Financial Group’s trust banking arm said. But the famously conservative investors probably won’t want a bite of SoftBank Group Corp’s new Vision Fund, Tetsuo Iimori, the chief executive of Mizuho Trust and Banking, told Reuters. Years of ultra-low interest rates have forced the hand of Japan’s mammoth pensions...

September 3, 2019
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August 2019

27Aug

Japan estimates cast doubt over public pension sustainability

Japan’s government unveiled estimates on Tuesday that showed public pension benefits steadily declining during coming decades, as it prepares to open up a debate on social security reforms needed to support an aging population. Curbing bulging welfare spending is a vital step toward fixing the industrial world’s heaviest debt burden, which is currently more than twice the size of Japan’s $5 trillion economy. While Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government has made welfare reform a top priority, it has moved...

August 27, 2019
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26Aug

Japan. Healthcare for the ageing and elderly worldwide is turning to robots

In America and other ageing societies around the world, it has become common for the elderly to be cared for by their greying children or older workers. That’s largely because the younger labour force is shrinking, and few want to do such low-paying, back-aching work. Japan sees an answer in robots. At Minami Tsukuba nursing home near Tokyo, caregiver Asami Konishi wears a robotic device on her hips that cuts the stress on her back when she bends and...

August 26, 2019
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23Aug

The Effects of Increasing the Eligibility Age for Public Pension on Individual Labor Supply: Evidence from Japan

By Nobuhiko Nakazawa This paper investigates the effects of increasing the eligibility age for public pension on workers' retirement decisions, focusing on recent Japanese public pension reforms. In Japan, the pensionable age for Employees' Pension Insurance benefits gradually increased from 60 to 65 for males over the course of a decade. Using individual-level administrative data and a regression discontinuity design, I find that raising the pensionable age for flat-rate benefits by one year increases male employment at the critical...

August 23, 2019
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21Aug

Japan’s Pension Fund Warns of Global Investing Losses

Global markets have become so synchronized that money managers risk losing on every front, according to Hiromichi Mizuno, chief investment officer of the world’s largest pension fund. Japan’s $1.5 trillion Government Pension Investment Fund lost money in equities, fixed-income and currency positions in the last three months of 2018, Mizuno pointed out on Tuesday in Sacramento, California. Read also World’s Biggest Pension Fund Adds $2.4 Billion “Conventional wisdom of portfolio diversification is when we lose money in equity we make...

August 21, 2019
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19Aug

Japan. World’s largest pension fund promotes ESG and performance-based fees

The largest pension fund in the world has been clarifying its sustainability goals in the last few years and fund managers ought to take note, as it is an initiator and it is working with other large asset owners. Read also Japan’s Pension Fund Warns of Global Investing Losses On Tuesday, CalPERS's investment committee will hear a keynote presentation from Hiro Mizuno, executive managing director and chief investment officer of the Japanese Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF). He will present...

August 19, 2019
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