Pensions Week articles from January 2008

Pensions Week archives from January 2008

News: GSK to lead the way with group Sipp.
January 14, 2008... Byline: Hannah Williams Leading pharmaceutical firm GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has become the first FTSE 100 company to offer members of its GBP5bn pension scheme access to a group self-invested pension plan (Sipp). The group Sipp, which...

News: Price-Haworth ditches Insight for Pioneer.
January 14, 2008... Byline: Gill Wadsworth Insight Investment's director and head of institutional sales has defected to Pioneer Investments. Roger Price-Haworth, who was promoted to director of sales in 2003, will leave Insight at the start of this year...

This week: A dark day for UK pensions.
January 14, 2008... Byline: Gill Wadsworth - Editor, Pensions Week When I started writing about pensions eight years ago, my then editor described me as the kiss of death. This flattering assessment was a reflection of how within months of my arrival in the...

News: Wind-up compensation to be paid at PPF levels.
January 14, 2008... Byline: Gill Wadsworth Pensions campaigners are looking forward to a brighter 2008 following the government's decision to pay compensation for lost retirement benefits to Pension Protection Fund (PPF) levels. The announcement, which...

News: Consensus slips away as doubt is cast over bill.
January 14, 2008... Byline: Gill Wadsworth The fragile political consensus on which the government is pinning its hopes for pensions reform suffered a setback last week as the latest pensions bill was debated in parliament. Chris Grayling, shadow work and...

News: Industry backs ACA's plans for risk-sharing.
January 14, 2008... Byline: Hannah Williams Champions of risk-sharing strategies have dismissed government speculation about a lack of industry appetite and vowed to continue the push for a middle way of pensions saving. During the second reading of the...

News: Price of disregard too high for DWP.
January 14, 2008... Byline: Hannah Williams Plans to disregard a proportion of a members' income from private pension savings when calculating means-tested benefits have been dismissed by the government on cost grounds. Proposals made by B&CE Benefit...

News in brief.
January 14, 2008... Hewitt Associates has poached a 28-year pensions veteran from rival Mercer. Andrew Sweeney has been appointed leader of Hewitt's corporate pension consulting team in its Leeds office. Sweeney, a qualified actuary, spent almost 30 years...

News: Northern Rock banks on gilts for DB scheme.
January 14, 2008... Byline: David Ricketts Beleaguered bank Northern Rock has revealed a GBP100m black hole in its pension scheme, adding further complications for potential buyers looking to come to the company's rescue. In a letter to members of the...

News: Schroders' growth funds seduce more clients in 2008.
January 14, 2008... Byline: Gill Wadsworth Leading asset manager Schroders added over 100 pension schemes to its suite of funds in 2007, with 60% of clients opting for diversified growth products. The new clients include the BTRetirement Plan, Unipart...

News: Latest ITV deal accepted.
January 14, 2008... The ongoing pay and pensions dispute at ITV could be drawing to a close as 97% of members voted to accept an improved benefit deal. The media group closed its final salary offering in 2006, with members offered a career-average alternative,...

News: Mercer expands RI team with six hires.
January 14, 2008... Byline: Hannah Williams Mercer has created the largest dedicated responsible investment consultancy team, following the appointment of six sustainability specialists. The analysts, who will join the company's advisory teams across the...

News: PPI develops pensions policy framework.
January 14, 2008... Byline: Tom Willetts A policy framework that supports a vision of a sustainable UK pensions system has been drawn up by a leading think-tank. The Pensions Policy Institute (PPI) identified seven principles to achieve consensus and...

News in brief.
January 14, 2008... Hewitt Associates has opened an investment consultancy office in Edinburgh, headed by Zuhair Mohammed and David Crum. Mohammed joined Hewitt earlier this year from Psolve, where he was head of the company's consulting business. Crum joined the...

News: Tata commits to more cash for British Steel.
January 14, 2008... Byline: David Ricketts The group that acquired steel giant Corus has promised to pump extra cash into the British Steel Pension Scheme, agreeing to increase its minimum contribution to 10%. Tata Steel, the Indian-based company that...

News: Police report shows majority of force claiming benefits.
January 14, 2008... Byline: David Ricketts The number of police officers claiming retirement benefits in some parts of the UK has outnumbered those in active service, figures detailing police funding have revealed. A report by the Chartered Institute of...

News: Equitable Life pays price for mis-selling.
January 14, 2008... Byline: Gill Wadsworth Over 400 with-profits savers have secured an undisclosed sum in a settlement with Equitable Life following the mis-selling debacle. Four hundred and seven claimants, who had taken their case to the High Court...

News: Experts clash over funding forecast.
January 14, 2008... Byline: Tom Willetts Increased life expectancy assumptions and new accounting guidelines could add GBP40bn to pension fund deficits this year, despite a significant reduction in deficits in 2007. According to Deloitte Total Reward and...

News: Trustees miss out on meetings to avoid conflicts.
January 14, 2008... Byline: Tom Willetts More than a third of trustee boards are not seeking independent advice on employer covenant issues, according to a survey from Gazelle Pensions Advisory. The survey of the UK's top 750 pension schemes also found a...

News: Trustee wins Hewitt surplus contest.
January 14, 2008... Byline: Gill Wadsworth A trustee of the Pfizer pension scheme has won the Hewitt Associates' surplus competition, which appeared in December 17 issue of Pensions Week. Kenneth Thompson guessed nearest to the GBP16bn that marked the...

Current affairs: Second chance.
January 14, 2008... Byline: Hannah Williams A new year and a new pensions bill, but still no consensus around the future of defined benefit (DB) provision. 2008 had barely begun before a brace of reports on the state of final salary schemes scurried forth...

Current affairs: The parliamentarian pensions imbalance.
January 14, 2008... Byline: Steve Bee There's a big battle going on in parliament right now about pensions and the question of being fair to people. It's got nothing to do with the plight of those who worked for up to 40 years paying into pension schemes,...

The insider: Personal view - Mortality assumptions hold the key to good scheme management in 2008.
January 14, 2008... Byline: Charles Cowling Mortality assumptions continue to vary greatly across pension schemes, but these variations cannot be accounted for solely by the real differences in workforce life expectancy. Obviously, for more conservative...

The Insider: Technical view - Is the roof about to fall in on pensions?
January 14, 2008... Byline: Myles Bradshaw Tougher credit conditions are about to hit just as the UK consumer has possibly stretched himself to the limit. Homeowners need to refinance their two-year fixed rate mortgages now, at a time when mortgage rates have...

Industry watch: Governance - Governance hangs on politics of each nation.
January 14, 2008... Byline: Tom Powdrill What makes one type of corporate governance system emerge in one country rather than another? Why is it that a unitary board is taken to be 'normal' in the UK, whereas a two-tier approach is common in many other...

Industry watch: Notice board - NAPF annual survey.
January 14, 2008... NAPF annual survey, 2007 Each year the NAPF carries out a detailed survey among its members. The survey provides schemes and their advisers with an invaluable insight into the pensions market, and is a unique benchmarking tool. The...

Industry watch: View from the bridge.
January 14, 2008... Byline: Norman Russell The view This is the time of year when pundits predict and perfectly sensible people turn into Mystic Megs (keeping their fingers crossed that in 12 months' time nobody will remember what they said 12 months...

Pensions workout: Beginners - Commercial property - Beginners' level.
January 14, 2008... On January 1, 2000, those waking up to the new millennium with a sore head were no doubt relieved to discover that at least the threatened Y2K meltdown had not materialised. Investors in the stock market had more reason than most to raise a...

On the move: Bestrustees boosts board with Wardle.
January 14, 2008... Byline: Tom Willetts Bestrustees has continued its flurry of recruitment activity by promoting former associate Graham Wardle to a director. Wardle joined Bestrustees in 2006 after a 30-year career at Mercer where he sat on the board...

On the move: Going places.
January 14, 2008... Investec welcomes Elks to sales team Investec Asset Management has appointed James Elks to its UK institutional sales team in a bid to boost business development in the UK and Ireland. Based in London, and reporting to Frank Doyle,...

On the move: Top 4 Moves.
January 14, 2008... 01 - Kevin Burgess OLD - Burgess was an actuary and consultant at Aon NEW - He joins Punter Southall as a qualified actuary Tel: 020 7839 8600 02 - Howard Steeples OLD - Steeples was chairman and chief executive of SBJ...

News: IBM introduces GBP5k pay deal for lay trustees.
January 21, 2008... Byline: David Rowley IBM UK Pensions Trust is to pay employee trustees GBP5,000 a year for the first time to recognise the growing complexity of the role. Previously, IBM only paid a fee to pensioner trustees. The latest National...

News: Property panic has investors ready to pounce.
January 21, 2008... Byline: David Rowley Institutional investors are looking to take advantage of the current panic in property investment, according to a leading investment consultant. Several pension funds are reported to be waiting for their moment...

This week: Who will be left holding the baby?
January 21, 2008... Byline: David Rowley - Acting editor, Pensions Week Personal accounts have come to pass because broadly they are for the greater good. However, like any newborn baby, they are causing a lot of disturbance. The House of Commons...

News: Industry seeks to quash EU GPP rules.
January 21, 2008... Byline: Hannah Williams Industry bodies have urged the government to head off European legislation blocking employees from auto-enrolment into group personal pensions (GPPs). Current EU legislation prohibits the automatic inclusion of...

News: Small firms need govt support for launch of PAs.
January 21, 2008... Byline: David Ricketts Leading employers are calling on the government to provide financial assistance to help small employers cope with the launch of personal accounts. Speaking at a committee debate on the pensions bill, Neil...

News: Using DC model will hike PA management costs.
January 21, 2008... Byline: David Ricketts The government is seeking advice from large pension providers on how to design and implement computer systems for personal accounts. Insurers spoken to by PW believe that if the Personal Accounts Delivery...

News: Bill will stop employers quizzing on PAs.
January 21, 2008... Byline: David Rowley Employers are to be barred from asking prospective employees in interviews whether they want to enrol into personal accounts. A ban is being inserted into the pensions bill to block employers that wish to limit the...

News in brief.
January 21, 2008... The London VAT Tribunal has ruled that Capital Cranfield Trustees can claim a VAT refund on expenses incurred while winding up the Kenrick and Jefferson Group Pension Plan. As a result of the ruling, statutory independent trustees in...

News: Labour attacks Tory plans to wind up DB.
January 21, 2008... Byline: Hannah Williams The government has hit back angrily over David Cameron's proposals to close MPs' final salary pension scheme to new members. The Conservative party leader said the fully funded, index-linked final salary...

News: Euro funds streets ahead of UK's asset allocations.
January 21, 2008... Byline: Tom Willetts Pension funds in the UK are lagging behind European pension funds in investing in alternative investments, according to research from Lehman Brothers. The firm's European pensions briefing compares the asset...

News: Neptune's equity fund swells to GBP650m.
January 21, 2008... Byline: David Ricketts Investment boutique Neptune Investment Management's global equity fund has topped Lipper's list of best performing funds during the last quarter of 2007. The fund, which has grown to GBP650m and is managed by...

News: UK funds to focus on alternatives in 2008.
January 21, 2008... Byline: Hannah Williams Bramdean Asset Management is on the hunt for a brace of alternative investment specialists to meet expected demand from pension funds. The multi-manager switched investment approach last year to focus fully on...

News: Indemnity providers take their pick.
January 21, 2008... Trustee interest in indemnity insurance has soared since simplification gave them an added burden of responsibility, according to new research. However, the latest Pensions Management trustee indemnity insurance (TII) survey has found...

News in brief.
January 21, 2008... Changes to regulations governing the circumstances when employer debt can occur have been delayed until February. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) had vowed to amend the regulations, which will introduce more options for dealing...

News: PPF burden shifts to better funded plans.
January 21, 2008... Byline: Tom Willetts A plan by the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) to charge better funded pension schemes more, risks alienating funds that have supported the levy so far. The PPF hopes its proposal will avoid putting an unfair burden...

News: SRI investors put pressure on UN Compact firms.
January 21, 2008... Byline: Tom Willetts Leading socially responsible investors have written to more than 100 UK companies pressing them to improve the integration of environmental, social and governance issues. The investors include CCLA Investment...

News: DB schemes ramp up diversification.
January 21, 2008... Byline: David Ricketts Defined benefit pension schemes continue to sell off equities in a bid to diversify assets, according to the latest NAPF annual survey. The survey found 47% of participants had reduced the proportion of strategic...

News: Investors study financial impact of climate change.
January 21, 2008... Byline: Tom Willetts Four institutional investors have launched a project to identify the physical impact of climate change on investments. The study from Henderson Global Investors, Insight Asset Management, Railpen Investments and...

News: Bond yields put blue chip firms back in black.
January 21, 2008... Byline: David Ricketts Blue chip company pension schemes were in the black at the end of last year, according to consultants. Mercer's quarterly FTSE 350 pensions deficit survey found the aggregate funding level of schemes stood at 98%...

News: Newsquest narrowly avoids strike action.
January 21, 2008... Byline: Hannah Williams Strike action has been averted at The Press newspaper in York, following an ongoing dispute over pension changes. More than 9,000 journalists working on Newsquest titles across the country have been involved in...

Current affairs: Profile - Robin Geffen.
January 21, 2008... If the large number of surveys and figures relating to an improvement in pension fund deficits are to be believed, trustees owe a lot to the quality of fund managers who have helped schemes crawl back from the extreme deficit levels blighting...

Current affairs: The recurrance of market anomalies.
January 21, 2008... Byline: Clive Gilchrist Unusual volatility in financial markets is all too frequently described as 'unprecedented', a 'once in a lifetime occurrence' or, to sound more impressive, a 'six-sigma event' - though if normally distributed,...

The insider: Personal view - Err on the side of caution with short-term surpluses caused by the crunch.
January 21, 2008... Byline: Gary Tansley Corporate bond yields have risen over the past 12 months, significantly reducing companies' reported pension liabilities and accounting deficits, even turning the latter into surpluses. For a GBP1bn fund this could add...

The Insider: Technical view - Group Sipps to come of age in 2008.
January 21, 2008... Byline: Tony Filbin Group self-invested personal pensions (Sipps) have enjoyed a mixed press since their launch, with supporters highlighting the flexibility and choice of open architecture arrangements and detractors concerned whether the...

Industry watch: Governance - Private equity loses its power to investors.
January 21, 2008... Byline: Tom Powdrill It is not clear to what extent the private equity industry's impact has been hampered by the credit crunch. Whether the rise of private equity is, as some claim, the new big idea in terms of addressing the...

Industry watch: Notice board - NAPF training and events.
January 21, 2008... Events News: March 5-7 NAPF investment conference 2008 - investing today, securing tomorrow. Edinburgh International Conference Centre. Former Bank of England governor Lord Eddie George heads a line-up of leading speakers at the...

Industry watch: View from the bridge.
January 21, 2008... Byline: Norman Russell Inspiration Regular readers will know that my commute to my London Bridge office on the Northern line often provides inspiration for this column. This morning I arrived in the office from New York courtesy of a...

Pensions workout: Intermediate - Commercial property - Intermediate level.
January 21, 2008... Last week we looked at the market in 2000, when commercial property was generally regarded as something of a minority interest asset class. It was a largely invisible component of mixed asset class funds for endowments, with-profit bonds or...

On the move: Cardano hedges bets with Guthrie selection.
January 21, 2008... Byline: Tom Willetts Cardano UK has appointed Keith Guthrie to lead its investment management team and to increase its expertise in hedge funds. In the new role, he will select investment managers for UK clients and work closely with...

On the move: Going places.
January 21, 2008... Brown bumped up to CEO at HSBC HSBC Investments in the UK has promoted Simeon Brown to chief executive officer (CEO), after working at the firm as acting CEO since September. Brown has also worked as chief operating officer of HSBC...

On the move: Top 4 moves.
January 21, 2008... 01 - Graham Wardle OLD - Wardle worked as an associate at Bestrustees NEW - He has been promoted to director Tel: 020 7332 4100 02 - James Elks OLD - Elks leaves Bramdean Asset Management NEW - He joins Investec Asset...

News: Market woes put pension funds at risk.
January 28, 2008... Byline: David Rowley Gloom on equities and increasing market volatility will fast-forward decisions on scheme closures, buyouts, alternative assets and liability- driven investment (LDI), say consultants. While trustees are reported to...

News: Enhanced annuities are on the rise.
January 28, 2008... Byline: David Ricketts The soaring number of people taking out enhanced annuities is set to continue, according to Watson Wyatt. The consultant said sales of annuities designed for those with serious medical conditions or negative...

This week: A matter of survival of the biggest.
January 28, 2008... Byline: David Rowley - Acting editor, Pensions Week Probably the most dramatic consequence of severe market corrections is the tendency to expose fraud, as has been seen at Societe Generale. One of the more understated consequences is for...

News: Trustees set the tone for pension holidays.
January 28, 2008... Byline: Tom Willetts and David Ricketts Trustees have the power to veto employers looking to follow BP and Shell in taking taking contribution holidays, advise lawyers. Provisions in the Pensions Act 2004 now limit the freedom for...

News: Compromise plan halts BBC strike action at final hour.
January 28, 2008... Byline: David Ricketts A strike at the BBC over changes to the corporation's final salary scheme has been averted, following overnight talks between the broadcaster and union representatives. The dispute has centred on proposals to...

News: 2007 valuations have led to relief from volatility.
January 28, 2008... Byline: David Ricketts Pension schemes that have undergone scheme valuations in 2007 can breathe a sigh of relief following recent stock market volatility, says a senior pensions consultant. Among those schemes escaping the worst of...

News: Purnell takes pensions job after Hain debacle.
January 28, 2008... Byline: Tom Willetts The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is welcoming back James Purnell as secretary of state for work and pensions. The 37-year-old returns following the resignation of Peter Hain over allegations surrounding...

News in brief.
January 28, 2008... Trustees of the Northern Rock Pension Scheme have approached buyout firms to sell the bank's GBP208m final salary scheme. Trustee John Watson said the cost of a deal could be between GBP150m to GBP250m. Watson said the scheme was well...

News: Mercer offers top 10 tips for reducing levy.
January 28, 2008... Byline: Tom Willetts Pension schemes can act to reduce the amount of levy they pay to the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) says Mercer. The firm is advising schemes and employers to review 10 areas before submitting levy returns to the...

News: Active managers fail to beat 2007 index returns.
January 28, 2008... Byline: David Rowley The majority of active pooled fund managers failed to achieve an outperformance of their respective indices in 2007, according to BNY Mellon Asset Servicing. This continuing failure of many active managers to beat...

News: Cowen fund tackles climate change.
January 28, 2008... Byline: David Ricketts A new fund has been launched in response to the growing demand for exposure to companies tackling climate change. The Cowen Climate Change Fund will concentrate on investments in a concentrated portfolio of 50...

News: Data search highlights private sector fraud risk.
January 28, 2008... Byline: David Rowley The Rexam Pension Plan has found 65 members who have died without the scheme being notified, after carrying out a National Fraud Initiative (NFI) data matching exercise. The plan, which has around 12,000 pensioners...

News: Advice at work vital to success of PAs.
January 28, 2008... Byline: David Ricketts Workplace financial advice will be crucial to the success of personal accounts in 2012 says the National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF). In its response to the interim report from the Thoresen review, the...

News in brief.
January 28, 2008... The average British employee expects to be retired by the time they are 62, according to a survey of 2,155 adults. The survey, commissioned by Baring Asset Management, found that 30% of people with a DC scheme expect to be able to retire...

News: Firms jump on GSK Sipp bandwagon.
January 28, 2008... Byline: David Rowley Several large employers are looking to follow GlaxoSmithKline by launching all-employee group self-invested personal pension (Sipp) schemes, according to providers and consultants. This month GlaxoSmithKline...

News: FTSE 350 firms fail to educate staff on brink of retirement.
January 28, 2008... Byline: David Rowley A third of FTSE 350 employers are breaching best practice by failing to explain the full list of retirement options for staff, according to JPMorgan Invest. This runs counter to Pensions Regulator advice that...

News: IFRIC 14 poses huge deficits threat.
January 28, 2008... Byline: Tom Willetts An accounting guideline introduced earlier this year could swell pension scheme deficits to new levels. A report from Pension Capital Strategies (PCS) warns the IFRIC 14 guideline introduced on January 1 will have...

News: Industry concerned over lack of DB focus.
January 28, 2008... Byline: David Ricketts A risk-sharing measure on indexation that could help save more defined benefit (DB) schemes is being sidelined by the government, according to leading actuaries. Conditional indexation is seen as a way employers...

News: Trustees call for more help with governance tasks.
January 28, 2008... Byline: Tom Willetts Trustee requests for help with pension scheme governance have doubled over the past 18 months says Hewitt Associates. Help in managing large time consuming projects and conducting governance and risk reviews is the...

News: MoD dodges tax for overpayments.
January 28, 2008... Byline: Tom Willetts The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is to escape a tax bill over a clerical error that would have penalised a private sector scheme. An error by the MOD led it to overpay the pensions of nearly 100 armed forces veterans...

Current affairs: Vulture culture.
January 28, 2008... Byline: David Rowley The uncomfortable logic facing pension funds currently is that the outlook for property is bad, so this year will be a good time to buy. Property investment values recorded a 9.7% decline in the Caps Pooled Pension...

Current affairs: Introduction of the inevitable.
January 28, 2008... Byline: Lindsay Tomlinson As I write, the National Pension Savings Scheme (NPSS) recommended by the Pensions Commission is slowly taking shape. In considering the implications of the NPSS, I think there are two major aspects:...