March 2024
21Mar

2023 US life statutory results: Individual annuity growth hits 21-year high

A resilient domestic economy, rising interest rates and ample supply of attractive products led to outsized expansion in individual annuities during a year of otherwise mixed growth in business volumes for the US life insurance industry. According to estimates from S&P Global Market Intelligence, individual annuity direct premiums and considerations surged by 21.8% in 2023. This data, aggregated from individual entity reports available as of March 11, marks a third straight year of double-digit growth, and the most substantial annual...

March 21, 2024
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20Mar

US. Pension Risk Transfers Trigger New ERISA Litigation

March is coming in like a lion with a new “genre” of ERISA litigation. The suits—two now targeting AT&T, the other Lockheed Martin—acknowledge that the process itself is perfectly legal, but question the prudence of the decision to “offload” that pension responsibility to parties—more specifically one party in particular—deemed less financially viable to fulfill those obligations. AT&T The plaintiffs in the first AT&T suit filed March 11 in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts (Piercy et al. v....

March 20, 2024
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19Mar

US. AT&T Faces Second Lawsuit Over Pension Plan Risk Transfer

AT&T Inc. was sued for the second time in a week by retirees who say it wrongly shifted responsibility for funding the pensions of 96,000 workers to a “highly risky” insurance company owned by private equity. The latest proposed class action, filed March 15 in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts, says AT&T offloaded more than $8 billion worth of pension benefits to subsidiaries of Athene Holding Ltd., which the retirees describe as “a private-equity controlled insurance company...

March 19, 2024
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19Mar

US. CalPERS pledges more than $8 billion to alts

CalPERS committed $850 million each to Global Infrastructure Partners V and a co-investment sidecar fund. Pension fund officials committed $512 million to buyout fund CVC Capital Partners IX, $300 million to Asia-Pacific focused buyout fund CVC Capital Partners Asia VI, and $268 million to buyout fund Whitney Global Partners II, all managed by CVC Capital Partners. CalPERS committed an additional $300 million to Thrive Capital Partners VIII Growth, a late- stage venture capital fund. It also committed $300 million each...

March 19, 2024
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15Mar

Unpackaging ESG: Evidence from 401(k) Investment

By Jiaxing Tian & Jiahong Shi We study how investors respond to scandals related to three distinct aspects of ESG--E(nvironmental), S(ocial) and G(overnance)--in their retirement savings. Using data on 401(k) investments, we show that nearby ESG scandals correlate with increased ESG fund additions and flows, possibly through ``evoking'' their existing sustainable preferences. Investors with different characteristics respond heterogeneously to E, S and G scandals. In magnitude, old investors are twice as likely as young investors to add ESG funds to...

March 15, 2024
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15Mar

Japan. World’s largest pension fund to resume foreign stock lending

Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF) has confirmed it will resume foreign stock lending after it first suspended the practice in December 2019. In the future, the fund intends to “promptly proceed” with specific practical measures such as the selection of foreign stock lending agents by asset management organisations. However, GPIF does not intend to carry out lending of domestic stocks. The fund will resume its activities in foreign stock lending (securities loan management) with a number of foreign stock lending initiatives. GPIF...

March 15, 2024
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14Mar

US. Around 20% of people have no retirement savings, survey finds

The AARP and the Ad Council launched a campaign called “This is Pretirement” to help encourage people to seriously think about their retirement plans. “The idea of creating a new campaign to give people small, actionable steps, to really get their retirement savings on track but remove that shame and fear, which is all over us when it really comes to retirement savings,” Mary Liz Burns with the AARP said. “You know, we did a financial trends survey, we’ve been doing it since the pandemic,”...

March 14, 2024
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13Mar

US. Corporate Pension Funding Levels Skyrocket in February

The funded status of U.S.-based corporate pension plans increased significantly in February, primarily due to a rally in technology stocks, driven by excitement over AI and semiconductors, according to industry reports. Funded status also continues to be boosted by heightened interest rates. The surplus in pension funding could have some plan sponsors considering what to do with their excess pension assets. Earlier this month, Eastman Kodak announced it would shut its investment office, shifting the management of its assets to...

March 13, 2024
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12Mar

U.S. institutional investors warm to Asian digital assets

Institutional investors from the U.S. are showing interest in Asian digital assets — much more than they did a year ago — and it will likely grow as more cryptocurrency ETFs may get approved globally, said Matt Long, Asia-Pacific general manager at digital asset prime brokerage FalconX, in an exclusive interview. "Last year, there was not a lot of liquidity in the (digital asset) markets. There was less positive sentiment, more uncertainty coming out of 2022, which was annus horribilis...

March 12, 2024
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12Mar

US. Comptroller DiNapoli Declares Exxon Not Transition-Ready: Who’s Next?

The New York State Common Retirement Fund recently announced it will restrict investment in eight energy companies, including ExxonMobilXOM -0.5%, following a review of the companies' "transition readiness" to a low-carbon economy. Overseeing the $250 billion New York State Common Retirement Fund for public employees, State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli defended the move, reiterating his broader ambitions to keep climate change "at the forefront" of the state pension fund's investment risk mitigation efforts. DiNapoli wants us to think he's doing so solely to protect pension fund members, not...

March 12, 2024
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