July 2021
22Jul

Prudential to Sell Its Retirement Division to Great-West for $3.55 Billion

Prudential Financial Inc. said it would sell its full-service retirement business to a unit of Canada’s Great-West Lifeco Inc. for $3.55 billion as the life insurer continues implementing Chief Executive Officer Charles Lowrey’s three-year transformation plan. The business will be purchased by Great-West’s Greenwood Village, Colorado-based Empower Retirement division. Prudential expects total proceeds of about $2.8 billion from the sale, which is expected to close in the first quarter of next year, the companies said in a statement. It will...

July 22, 2021
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20Jul

Danish pension firms censured for failure to ID money-laundering risks

Six Danish pension providers have been ordered to revise their risk assessments regarding money laundering, after the country’s financial watchdog followed through on a tightening of the regulations at the end of last year. AP Pension was given several official orders to correct procedures, while others, such as Danica Pension and PenSam, got away more lightly following a series of inspections conducted by the Danish FSA. The FSA said it had conducted an investigation into the risk assessments of life insurance...

July 20, 2021
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12Jul

Transferring A Business Following Insolvency In Germany: Who Pays The Pensions Bill?

Acquiring a business on insolvency can have pitfalls, especially if it involves an employee occupational pension scheme. Will the German Federal Labour Court's case law, which is favourable to acquirers, continue to apply following a recent European Court of Justice decision? The promise of a company pension makes companies an attractive employer for (potential) employees. However, if a company is to be sold at some point, the pension obligations can become a dealbreaker from the buyer's point of view. Particularly...

July 12, 2021
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June 2021
28Jun

US. Pension risk transfer premiums ease in May

Pension risk transfer premiums fell slightly in May, a Milliman study said. The estimated buyout cost as a percentage of accounting liabilities (accumulated benefit obligation) was 102% as of May 31, down from 102.4% at the end of April. The cost has fluctuated between 101.8% and 102.7% since the beginning of 2021. "As expected, first quarter 2021 pension risk activity was down, but historically each progressing quarter sees an increase in activity," said Mary Leong, Milliman consulting actuary and the study's co-author,...

June 28, 2021
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17Jun

Air France–KLM Completes De-Risking of Pension Plans

It has taken airline operator Air France–KLM several years, but it has finally completed the de-risking of its three main Dutch KLM pension plans in a move it says will create more predictable annual contributions and less balance sheet volatility. The airline reported late last week that it had reached an agreement with the five Dutch ground unions in KLM to convert the pension plan for its ground staff into a collective defined contribution (DC) plan. Under the terms of...

June 17, 2021
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15Jun

UK. Third of high risk DB transfers would pass new scam test

One in three defined benefit transfers flagged as high risk would be allowed under new government proposals designed to reduce scams, a consultancy has warned. XPS looked at data from its Scam Protection Service and found that of all the transfers flagged by the service since July 2018, one in three would have satisfied the ‘first condition’ of the Department for Work and Pensions’ proposed legislation. The government is planning to give trustees the power to halt suspicious transfers and has...

June 15, 2021
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11Jun

Risk-Adjusted Valuation in the Worker’s Economic Decision Making

By Hangsuck Lee, Doojin Ryu, Jihoon Son We suggest an overlapping generations model incorporating the risk-adjusted valuation in a worker’s decision problem. The risk-adjusted probabilities allow risk-averse workers to place more weight on cash flows upon retirement when assessing lifetime income at present value. The risk-adjusted valuation is consistently applied to any non-financial asset, allowing them to be evaluated collectively or separately. We predict capital returns under demographic structure, consumption preference, and social security policy changes. Source: SSRN 244 views

June 11, 2021
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09Jun

U.K. government to mandate climate risk assessment by retirement plans

U.K. retirement plans with at least £5 billion ($7.1 billion) in assets will be required to assess and publicly report climate change risks in their portfolios starting in October under regulations presented to Parliament on Tuesday. The new regulations, which are subject to parliamentary debate, fall under the Pension Schemes Act 2021 and will require trustees to identify and evaluate climate risks and opportunities that may affect investment strategies over the short, medium and long terms. Investors will also be required...

June 9, 2021
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04Jun

Why retirees need to heed the ‘sequence-of-returns risk’ in their portfolios

When world markets took a nosedive in the early days of the COVID-19 crisis, many investors worried about the hit they saw on their returns in monthly statements. Those in the early days of retirement were particularly lucky that the pandemic-driven plummet proved to be short-lived. A prolonged downturn of that magnitude at the start of the period when you’re drawing on investments can have disastrous consequences on your long-term portfolio performance, experts say. Still, there are pre-retirement strategies that...

June 4, 2021
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03Jun

US. Pension risk transfer premiums hit record low – paper

Pension risk transfer premiums are lower than ever, according to a paper from pension risk consultant BCG Penbridge. The consultant was involved in 53 PRT transactions in 2020, involving the purchase of group annuity contracts by U.S. corporate pension plans to transfer a certain number of retirees and pension liabilities to one or more insurers. Among those transactions, 42 were full plan terminations, and the average premium was 101%. Among the 11 PRT transactions that involved retiree liftouts, the average premium was...

June 3, 2021
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