May 2024
21May

Pension De-Risking with Lump Sum Windows

Pension plans are critical components of retirement security, yet they pose significant financial and operational risks to sponsoring organizations. The volatility of funding requirements, coupled with longevity and investment risks, compels companies to seek innovative de-risking strategies. Offering a temporary lump sum window to active employees over age 59½, as facilitated by the Miners Act of 2019, has emerged as a strategic tool for de-risking pension plans. Background The Pension Protection Act of 2006 introduced the concept of phased retirement whereby pension...

May 21, 2024
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17May

Goldman Strikes $43 Billion Investing Deal for UPS Pension Funds

By Marion Halftermeyer, Sridhar Natarajan   Goldman Sachs Group Inc. clinched a $43 billion mandate to invest pension fund assets of parcel-delivery company UPS, in one of the largest deals of its kind. The investment mandate announced Thursday pushes Goldman, which manages some $325 billion of such pension assets, closer to its goal of surpassing rivals in the next three to five years. Those rivals include Marsh McLennan’s Mercer, BlackRock Inc. and Russell Investments. The multitrillion-dollar global business of taking on investing responsibility...

May 17, 2024
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17May

Nigerian Government Denies It’s Attempting to Illegally Access Workers’ Pension Funds

In response to circulating rumors, the Federal Government has emphatically denied any intentions to illegally access the hard-earned savings and pension contributions of workers. This clarification comes amidst concerns raised by various quarters regarding the safety and security of pension funds. The Finance Minister, Wale Edun addressed the issue, stating, “The pension industry, like most financial industries, is highly regulated. There are rules. There are limitations about what pension money can be invested in and what it cannot be invested in.” He...

May 17, 2024
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16May

S. Korea’s retirement pension funds post double-digit growth in 2023

South Korea's retirement pension funds posted a double-digit growth last year amid the higher return on investment, government data showed Thursday. Corporate retirement pension funds under management grew 13.8 percent over the year to 382.4 trillion won (283.9 billion U.S. dollars) in 2023, according to joint data from the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) and the Ministry of Employment and Labor. For the past five years, the retirement pension funds doubled from 190 trillion won (141.1 billion dollars) in 2018. The funds' annual...

May 16, 2024
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15May

Google Cloud Accidentally Deletes Australian Superannuation Fund’s Data

The Australian superannuation fund UniSuper had its private cloud data deleted accidentally earlier this month, disrupting the fund’s services for the past couple of weeks. A configuration problem caused Google Cloud to delete UniSuper’s account. UniSuper, which has AUD 125 billion ($82.73 billion) in assets serving more than 615,000 beneficiaries, is working with Google Cloud to restore and backup the fund’s data. UniSuper said in a statement that it had backups of its data with a separate provider. UniSuper’s systems...

May 15, 2024
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14May

US. Pending DOL Report to Consider Pension Risk Transfer Changes

Report to Congress in clearance process, EBSA chief says DOL weighing in may have chilling effect on risk transfers Large employer pensions looking to offload their funding liabilities through pension risk transfers are anticipating tougher future regulatory scrutiny as the US Labor Department prepares a report for Congress on the $45 billion de-risking market. The Employee Benefits Security Administration’s report appears likely to propose changes to a 1995 interpretive bulletin on pension risk transfers that laid out standards for employers...

May 14, 2024
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10May

US. Public Retirement Systems Need Policies for Navigating Volatile Financial Markets

Over the past decade, policy reforms and increased financial contributions have dramatically improved the cash flow situation of some of the nation’s most troubled state pension plans. Thanks to these changes, no state was at risk of pension insolvency as of fiscal year 2021. Yet for some states, these improvements won’t be enough to provide their pension systems—and the public employees and retirees who rely on them—with long-term stability. In 2021, once-in-a-generation investment returns raised state pension funding to levels...

May 10, 2024
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09May

Kenya. Pension funds cut stock holdings to 11-year low of Sh145 billion

Pension funds cut their holdings in listed shares (equities) to an 11-year low of Sh145.1 billion in the year ended December 2023, signalling reduced allocation to this asset class besides the impact of lower stock prices in the review period. New data from the Retirement Benefits Authority (RBA) shows that retirement schemes' investment in the stock market fell from Sh215.24 billion a year earlier. The disclosure of the latest holdings marked the lowest level since 2012, coinciding with the continued bear...

May 9, 2024
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08May

Why Europe’s largest investors are building their defense war chests

As war rages on Europe’s doorstep and authorities across the region explicitly encourage institutional investors to support national security, some European pension funds are changing their investment policies to put more money to work in the defense industry. Last month, Danish pension funds told Pensions & Investments that the war in Ukraine had led to a rethink of allocations to defense assets. Some had already been investing — carefully and always with a responsible investment framework in mind — in defense and aerospace...

May 8, 2024
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06May

Nigeria’s Liabilities to Retirees Under Contributory Pension Scheme Hits N314.58bn

The National Pension Commission (PenCom) has disclosed that the federal government’s total liability from the implementation of the pension increases in 2007 and 2010 as well as the 2019 consequential adjustment for retirees under the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) stood at N314.58 billion in 2023. This came as PenCom has further sought approval for an increase in pension rates for pensioners under the Defined Benefits Scheme (DBS), following the recent increase in salaries for employees of treasury-funded Ministries, Departments and...

May 6, 2024
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