Pensions Week articles from July 2005

Pensions Week archives from July 2005

News: Laverick ponders taking on FAS role.
July 4, 2005... The government has entered into discussions with the pensions ombudsman, David Laverick, about him dealing with appeals against decisions made by the Financial Assistance Scheme (FAS). In addition, he will also act as an ombudsman for the...

News: Schroders ends outsourcing custody project with JPM.
July 4, 2005... Schroders has terminated its outsourcing project for custody and accounting services with JPMorgan Chase & Co. The firm said the agreement follows a decision that the operating models are no longer sufficiently aligned to justify the...

News: Watson's Dowsett quits to head team at Schroders.
July 4, 2005... A senior consultant at Watson Wyatt has defected to Schroders to head up the fund manager's consultant relations team. Gary Dowsett has been appointed as deputy head of Schroders global consultancy and head of European consultancy - a newly...

News: NAPF says 'no' to code for investors.
July 4, 2005... The National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) has rejected calls for a combined code of practice for the investment community. Christine Farnish, chief executive of the NAPF, argued that an institutional investor code was an unnecessary...

News: Funds' push into real estate could cause price escalation.
July 4, 2005... Demand for commercial property could result in higher prices as pension funds aim to increase exposure to eliminate deficits. Property adviser CB Richard Ellis (CBRE) predicted that prices within the European property market will go up as...

News: PBGC warns PPF of urgent need for risk-based levy.
July 4, 2005... The UK government should take a hard line on employers who do not plug their pension deficits, the executive director of the US pensions lifeboat told PW. Bradley Belt, executive director of the Pensions Benefit Guaranty Corporation...

News: Regulator's 10% equity stake in Heath Lambert causes concern.
July 4, 2005... The Pensions Regulator's move to take a 10% equity stake in Heath Lambert has been met with criticism on both sides of the Atlantic. Jeffrey Mamorksy, chairman of employee benefits at US law firm Greenberg Traurig, told PW that taking on...

News: Hopes for improvement of pension deficits dashed despite trustee efforts.
July 4, 2005... Attempts to improve UK pension deficits have stalled, despite concerted efforts by trustees over the past 18 months, according to Hewitt Associates. The consultant warned of a "long hot summer of pension problems", as hopes for an early...

News: Watson Wyatt wins oe400m Ciba Chemicals mandate.
July 4, 2005... Consultant Watson Wyatt has replaced KPMG as the pensions administration manager and accountant of a GBP400m mandate. Ciba Speciality Chemicals, a global chemicals firm, cited costs and greater IT capabilities as the reasons to award the...

News: Lib Dems call for public sector final salary schemes overhaul.
July 4, 2005... Final salary arrangements for public sector pension schemes will face the axe unless they undergo immediate reform, Liberal Democrats work and pensions minister, David Laws, told PW. The disparity between public and private sector pension...

News: Regulator issues notifiable events code for DB schemes.
July 4, 2005... The Pensions Regulator has issued a code of practice on notifiable events, which covers the duty to notify specified scheme-related and employer-related events. The duty applies to all defined benefit (DB) schemes which are eligible for...

News: Outsourcing spurs share price increase for European fund management firms.
July 4, 2005... Outsourcing back and middle-office services could add 10% to the shareholder value of European asset managers, according to a report by the Bank of New York (BNY). The study, conducted by independent strategic adviser Oxford Metrica, found...

News: BAM adds Japanese hedge fund to its offering.
July 4, 2005... Baring Asset Management (BAM) has launched a Japanese hedge fund which aims to take advantage of the continuing structural recovery in Japan. The Baring Japan absolute return fund is available to international investors and aims to return...

News: IFAs rush to transfer assets to meet A-day deadline.
July 4, 2005... A-day on 6 April next year could create a bottleneck for independent financial advisers rushing to transfer clients' assets before the deadline, according to Open Annuity, the specialist annuity provider. Ken Wrench, chief executive, said...

News: TPAS slams advisers for lack of advice on contracting-out.
July 4, 2005... Financial advisers are failing consumers by not giving them advice on contracting-out, according to a damning report by The Pensions Advisory Service (TPAS). TPAS condemned the reluctance of financial advisers to offer advice to their...

News: Morgan appointed as chairman of the board at Blacket Research.
July 4, 2005... Measurement and monitoring firm Blacket Research has appointed David Morgan, chief executive of the Coal Pension Trustee Services, as chairman. The appointment of Morgan, who will also serve as a non-executive director, follows Blacket's...

News: WestLB targets European multi-manager market.
July 4, 2005... WestLB has initiated an assault on the multi-manager market with the launch of its manager-of-managers offering headed by former MM Asset Management director of research Alan Bartlett. As chief investment officer, Bartlett will use WestAM -...

News: Selectapension expands services to IFA.
July 4, 2005... Substantial investment into Selectapension is set to allow the pensions research firm to expand its services to independent financial advisers. Andy McCabe, managing director of Selectapension, claimed the funds had been invested due to...

News: Royal Dutch/Shell merger may spur rebalancing woes.
July 4, 2005... Institutional investors face months of chaos with a GBP22bn buying spree ahead, following the confirmation of the merger between Royal Dutch and Shell. The process of rebalancing portfolios could take up to a year to complete, warned...

News: Government to throw out disastrous RU64 scheme.
July 4, 2005... The government is set to admit defeat and scrap its controversial RU64 requirements that may have squeezed the advisory market by up to 61% over the last seven years. The FSA last week published a consultation paper proposing a change to...

News: Benchmark - The curse of over-specialisation.
July 4, 2005... In my schooldays I had a mutual antipathy with one master in particular who taught economics and English. This seemed a strange combination of subjects, held together by his unique ability to make each indescribably boring. The nadir of our...

News: Personal pensions top ombudsman's workload list.
July 4, 2005... Personal pensions continued to form a significant part of the workload for the financial ombudsman, representing 22% of complaints. The majority of complaints over the financial year ending 31 March 2005, were related to the industry-wide...

News: PPF levies may spell the end of many underfunded schemes.
July 4, 2005... Concerns are growing that the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) levies will force many underfunded retirement schemes to be wound-up. Sponsoring employers on the verge of bankruptcy could find paying PPF levies too arduous to survive, experts...

News: Ombudsman watch.
July 4, 2005... Hastings Bass Regular readers will recall that last week I promised that this week all would be revealed. More precisely, I said that the oracle would reveal its predictions (contrarian based) about pensions post-Turner. Oracles,...

News: Hedge funds managers hit out over performance jibes.
July 4, 2005... Hedge fund managers have hit back at perceived industry bias, arguing that pension funds would have gained better returns over five years if invested in alternative strategies. Charles Hovenden, chief investment officer at UK hedge fund...

News: S&P issues guidelines for ending deficits.
July 4, 2005... Ratings, research and indices provider Standard & Poor's has issued the first guidelines to help UK pension schemes determine an appropriate policy and timeframe for eliminating scheme deficits. The guidelines reflect scheme maturity and...

News: Allianz, WWF outline steps to take on climate change.
July 4, 2005... Companies need to start taking more action over climate change and should systematically screen risks, international financial services provider Allianz and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said. In a joint report, Allianz and the WWF outlined...

News: Don't miss this week's Trustee Masterclass.
July 4, 2005... This week's issue of PW comes with the latest educational card for pension scheme trustees, as part of the Trustee Masterclass joint initiative between PW and Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (MLIM). The Trustee Masterclass aims to help UK...

News: Look East for growth, says BAM.
July 4, 2005... UK pension funds should take advantage of growth opportunities in Asia and increase their investments in the region, according to fund management experts. Michael Hughes, chief investment officer at Baring Asset Management (BAM), led the...

News: Thomson offers Instinet strategies on global network.
July 4, 2005... Thomson Financial is to make Instinet's algorithmic trading strategies accessible via the Thomson AutEx Order Routing global network. Instinet Algorithms enables clients to select and use those rules which meet their specific requirements...

News: Employers will face sharp hike in contribution demands.
July 4, 2005... Different approaches will be needed to manage UK defined benefit (DB) scheme deficits after September this year when new pension funding rules come into effect. Francis Fernandes, head of actuarial at ABN Amro, said the rules replacing the...

News: PMI updates model admin agreement.
July 4, 2005... The Pensions Management Institute (PMI) has revised its model administration agreement. The model administration agreement was originally produced in 2002 to give trustees and their administrators the basis on which to establish the...

News: Events.
July 4, 2005... TRUSTEE COURSES HSBC Actuaries and Consultants will be running fundamentals, intermediate and advanced trustee training courses at locations in the UK throughout this year. The fundamentals course is aimed at new trustees and pension...

News: Share options used to compensate for lifetime pension limit.
July 4, 2005... Almost a quarter of UK companies have changed their senior executives' remuneration packages to reflect the GBP1.5m pensions cap. A study by InterExec, a career development specialist, found that23% of companies have changed their...

News: Pension managers see below average salary increases.
July 4, 2005... Pension managers saw an average increase of 3.4% in salaries this year - 0.9% below the national average. Combined earnings rose by 4% - again, less than the national average. Managers in the engineering sector did least well with a 3%...

News: NAPF notice board.
July 4, 2005... Preparing for A-day Tuesday 27 September, NAPF London A practical workshop produced by the NAPF in association with HMRC On 6 April 2006, the new tax regime for pensions comes into force. Pension schemes, individuals and providers...

Governance update: J Sainsbury shows good governance.
July 4, 2005... J Sainsbury will be holding its annual general meeting (AGM) on the 13 July 2005. This year it has established clear governance policies to ensure that the board and the management operate within a clear and efficient governance framework and,...

Spotlight: Removing the obstacles to reform.
July 4, 2005... A battle is brewing between chancellor Gordon Brown and David Blunkett, work and pensions minister, with the future of long-term pensions policy hanging in the balance. A long-awaited pensions consensus is slowly being forged between the...

Opinion: Leader - We need a cultural change in pensions.
July 4, 2005... A recent conversation brought home one cultural difference between the UK and the USA on pensions matters. The conversation with an American was on the parallels between President Bush's proposed reforms to the US state pension (social...

Opinion: Personal view - It's all about confidentiality.
July 4, 2005... It is a sign of the times that trustees are being asked to sign confidentiality agreements with their sponsoring employer. The most likely circumstance in which the employer may insist on such an agreement is where the scheme is in deficit and...

Opinion: Inside view - Using the right tools to assess risk.
July 4, 2005... An EDHEC survey earlier this year showed that too many sophisticated investors are still assessing a manager's returns and risk exposure using risk measurement techniques and, in particular, the Sharpe ratio, which are ill-suited to the...

People on the move: Northern Trust charges Misata with relationship management.
July 4, 2005... Northern Trust has appointed William Misata as vice president, relationship management within the global fund services team. Misata will be responsible for a number of Northern Trust's key fund manager relationships. He will also oversee...

People on the move: Mahmud joins Irwin Mitchell as solicitor.
July 4, 2005... Law firm Irwin Mitchell has appointed Imtiaz Mahmud as solicitor. Mahmud joins the Holborn offices from Browne Jacobson and will be responsible for advising clients on pension matters and helping to develop the business. Mahmud...

People on the move: Gartmore promotes two to top spots.
July 4, 2005... Jeff Meyer has been promoted to chief executive and Les Aitkenhead as chief operating officer of Gartmore Europe, effective from this month. Reporting to Paul Hondros, global chief executive, Meyer will assume local control of the European...

People on the move: Freeman head of product at MLIM.
July 4, 2005... Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (MLIM) has appointed Paul Freeman as of head of product for Europe, Middle East, Africa (EMEA) and the Asia Pacific region. In this newly created position, Freeman will lead product development and product...

People on the move: Jones joins Scottish Life as development manager.
July 4, 2005... Scottish Life, the pensions arm of the Royal London Group, has appointed Emma Jones as investment development manager. Reporting to Graham Dow, head of business development, Jones will be primarily responsible for the promotion of Scottish...

News: Aberdeen seeks revival via Deutsche purchase.
July 11, 2005... Aberdeen Asset Management is hoping to use its planned acquisition of Deutsche Asset Management's (DeAM) GBP265m equity and fixed income operations as a springboard to regain UK market share lost after the split capital investment trusts...

News: Swap multi-managers for with-profits, urges Cazalet.
July 11, 2005... Pension investors holding with-profit funds should switch to multi-managers, according to controversial actuarial consultant Ned Cazalet. Cazalet Consulting said many life offices have slashed their equity exposure and, with charges for...

News: Smaller issue due to London blasts.
July 11, 2005... Due to incidents in London last week, this week's PW is smaller than usual. We expect the magazine to return to normal next week. Everyone at PW would like to say that our thoughts are with those affected by the bomb blasts in London last...

News: Managers laud the 'Olympic effect'.
July 11, 2005... The economic impact of London's successful bid for the 2012 Olympic games should not be underestimated, experts said last week. Fund managers said a number of stocks could be significant beneficiaries of London's coup. Building,...

News: Wragge attacks rules on consultation.
July 11, 2005... New regulations over consultation on future service changes have been criticised as imposing needless red tape on employers by law firm Wragge & Co. Richard Lee, head of Wragge & Co's combined human resources solutions team, said: "It is...

News: Europe's poor VC score.
July 11, 2005... European firms backed by venture capital are poorly funded compared with US firms backed by venture capital, according to a new report. The European venture capital sector delivered disappointing performance in the 1990s and failed to...

News: Correction.(Correction Notice)
July 11, 2005... Last week's PW carried a picture of the late Andrew Gibson, formerly of Law Debenture, which was wrongly labelled as Andrew Gibson of International Asset Management (page 9, Hedge fund managers hit out over performance jibes). We would like to...

News: oe3.3bn Merseyside bolsters alternative portfolio with PFI.
July 11, 2005... The GBP3.3bn Merseyside pension fund has extended its alternative investment portfolio to include a GBP5m private finance initiative (PFI) allocation. The local authority scheme awarded Henderson Global Investors' PFI secondary fund the...

News: Communication drive needed to combat 'pensions illiterate' public.
July 11, 2005... The pensions industry needs to put more effort into communicating with policyholders according to Liberata, the life and pensions outsourcing company. Many policyholders they say are 'pensions illiterate' with 80% of people failing to...

News: CFAM capitalises on MoM growth with Escher UK acquisition.
July 11, 2005... Close Finsbury Asset Management (CFAM) has acquired manager-of-managers Escher UK Asset Management. Close Finsbury now has 100% of the share capital of the company prior to Financial Services Authority approval. Rufus Warner, chief...

News: LaSalle takes on Nationwide's property foray.
July 11, 2005... Nationwide pension fund has appointed LaSalle Investment Management to manage a GBP100m direct property portfolio. LaSalle will build up a diversified portfolio of assets across the UK to fulfil the needs of Nationwide as a long-term...

News: Nottinghamshire awards briefs after SRI overhaul.
July 11, 2005... The GBP1.7bn Nottinghamshire County Council pension fund has appointed Aegon Asset Management to manage a GBP300m diversified fixed income mandate and Martin Currie Investment Management for a GBP100m UK equities portfolio. The...

News: Funds increasingly attracted to unconstrained mandates.
July 11, 2005... Pension schemes are turning to fund managers who are ditching traditional benchmark constraints, according to a global human resources firm. Fund managers are responding to a spike in demand for investment away from benchmarks by...

News: Benchmark - In praise of the pensions credit.
July 11, 2005... There is almost no media reporting of the pensions credit. The benefit has been an outstanding success. Contrast that record with what has been happening on working and child tax credits - chaos reigns. Pensions are being run by the...

News: Managers pessimistic despite bumper fund business figures.
July 11, 2005... Fund managers are less optimistic about their business despite strong growth volumes and profitability over the past three months, according to the latest report by the Confederation of British Industries (CBI) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC)....

News: Pension funds still drawn to bonds and alternatives.
July 11, 2005... Bonds and alternative asset classes are eating into the equity slice of pension fund allocation, a survey has revealed. The annual survey by Mercer Investment Consulting found that pension schemes are continuing to move from equity to bond...

News: Sipp warning over borrowing.
July 11, 2005... Individuals could find themselves locked into their existing self-invested personal pension (Sipp) provider post A-day, a Sipp administrator warned last week. Andy Bell, managing director of AJ Bell Group, said two confirmations on...

News: LCP to advise on public sector contract benefits.
July 11, 2005... Actuarial consultant Lane Clark & Peacock (LCP) has formed a public sector outsourcing group within the firm's corporate consulting practice. The group's focus is on advising private sector companies on the pensions and redundancy benefits...

News: A-day regs to boost offshoring.
July 11, 2005... Offshore outsourcing from the UK pensions industry is expected to increase after A-day 2006, according to an Indian business process outsourcing provider. ICICI Onesource said regulatory changes created by pensions simplification could...

News: NAPF notice board.
July 11, 2005... NAPF Trustee Conference in association with the Financial Times Wednesday 28 September 2005, Royal College of Surgeons, London Pension scheme trusteeship - A survival guide Following the hugely successful 2004 collaboration between...

Spotlight: The indirect route to property.
July 11, 2005... As a smaller pension fund investor, is property outside your scope for investment? Perhaps it is an unfamiliar area, or you consider it too specialist, too complicated and too risky. But, is property an asset class in which you should be...

Opinion: Leader - Bring in the red tape taskforce.
July 11, 2005... One of the aims of pensions simplification, if not the aim, is to simplify pensions. This objective has been widely derided by those grappling with the new regulations and proposals, as there will be a transitional period before true simplicity...

Opinion: Personal view - Do alternative assets have a place in pension funds?
July 11, 2005... Traditionally, UK corporate pension funds have invested primarily in a mixture of equities and bonds, with smaller holdings in property and cash. However, the collapse in equity markets between September 2000 and March 2003, combined with...

Opinion: Inside view - Consider the alternative - hedge funds.
July 11, 2005... Hedge funds have represented one the best means for high net worth investors to achieve their investment objectives: preserving capital and outpacing inflation while giving a high real return on capital, with a lower level of volatility than...

People on the move: Thomas takes responsibility for Morley's equity performance.
July 11, 2005... Morley Fund Management has appointed Tim Thomas as head of equities. He joins Morley from McKinsey & Co where he worked with large European insurance and asset management clients for the past four years. Prior to McKinsey, Thomas spent...

People on the move: Duffy heads corporate governance at Axa IM.
July 11, 2005... Axa Investment Managers (Axa IM) has appointed Shade Duffy as head of corporate governance. Duffy joins Axa IM from Henderson Global Investors where she worked as manager, corporate governance. Prior to that, Duffy spent three years as an...

People on the move: Doran appointed to RLAM board of directors.
July 11, 2005... Royal London Asset Management (RLAM) has appointed Paul Doran to the board of directors from this month. Doran, head of quantitative techniques at RLAM, is responsible for developing portfolio risk models and for the development of...

People on the move: Mullen made senior partner at Pinsent Masons.
July 11, 2005... Law firm Pinsent Masons has appointed Chris Mullen as a senior partner. Mullen was elected after a vote from the firm's 264 partners in the UK and overseas. His term of office will run concurrent with that of the firm's board through...

People on the move: Burden joins MLIM global equities team.
July 11, 2005... Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (MLIM) has appointed Samantha Burden to the global equities team. Burden will assume responsibility for investments in the global retail sector. Burden's career began with TRW Investment Management in...

News: Dividend payments will fall as PPF levies rise.
July 18, 2005... Shareholders face a cut in their dividend payments as the government safety net's risk-based levy drains company finances, experts warn. [] Following the government's proposals for the risk-based levy of the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) and...

News: Trustees selected to advise minister.
July 18, 2005... Trustees from some of the UK's largest pension funds have been selected to advise the government on pensions issues. [] Barclays Bank, Sainsbury's and the Superannuation Arrangements of the University of London are among the schemes selected by...

News: S&P appoints new pensions head.
July 18, 2005... Standard & Poor's (S&P) has appointed ex-Arlington managing director David Hunter to head up its pensions services unit. [] Hunter takes responsibility for market research and product development for the firm's pensions services. [] At...

News: Standard Life considers the use of controversial CPPI product.
July 18, 2005... Standard Life is gearing up to introduce controversial structured pensions products despite fierce criticism from parts of the industry over their effectiveness. [] The firm is actively considering introducing constant proportion portfolio...

News: Watson Wyatt tops equity returns.
July 18, 2005... Watson Wyatt may be pursuing a more aggressive investment policy for its clients compared with other mainstream consultancies, according to a review of the latest FRS 17 figures. [] A survey by independent monitoring and measurement company...

News: Analytics system from JPMorgan.
July 18, 2005... JPMorgan has launched a performance measurement and analytics reporting system to help pension funds maximise returns. [] The firm claims the service will allow its institutional clients to analyse the effectiveness of their portfolio...

News: Lambeth sacks F&C for poor performance on ethical brief.
July 18, 2005... A GBP500m London local authority pension fund has dropped F&C Asset Management following continued underperformance of its ethical fund. [] The London Borough of Lambeth pension fund sacked F&C as manager of its GBP1.5m ethical brief after it...

News: Environment Agency awards contracts to Morley and Robeco.
July 18, 2005... The GBP1bn Environment Agency pension fund has completed its final round of investment manager appointments following a move to specialist fund management. [] Two further managers have won mandates in what has amounted to a major shake- up of...

News: Invesco outsources DC platform.
July 18, 2005... Invesco Perpetual has strengthened its core investment business by outsourcing its defined contribution (DC) administration platform to Jardine Lloyd Thompson (JLT). [] As part of the deal, more than 30 people in the DC administration team will...