Pensions Week articles from July 2007

Pensions Week archives from July 2007

News: Westwell moves on.
July 2, 2007... Byline: Gill Wadsworth Mark Westwell has defected from Bank of New York (BNY) to rival State Street just two years after joining the custodian from JPMorgan. Westwell joins State Street as head of relationship management and sales,...

News: Regulator in spotlight over human rights.
July 2, 2007... Byline: Ryan Harrison The Pensions Regulator could breach human rights laws if it demands the funding of pension fund deficits by enforcing financial support directions (FSD) in the UK. The regulator's first FSD required Bermuda-based...

This Week: Another one bites the dust.
July 2, 2007... Byline: Gill Wadsworth, Editor, Pensions Week It was always unlikely that the UK would cling to a work and pensions secretary for much over a year, and as Gordon Brown stepped into his role as prime minister it was a foregone conclusion...

News: Personal admin gripes soar for closed companies.
July 2, 2007... Byline: Hannah Williams Complaints about the administration of personal pensions have rocketed in the last year while occupational moans finally fell. Figures from The Pensions Advisory Service's (TPAS) annual report found personal...

News: Campaigners quick to doorstep Hain.
July 2, 2007... Byline: Gill Wadsworth Campaigners fighting for lost pensions have vowed to keep up their fight for compensation by demanding a meeting with new work and pensions secretary Peter Hain. The Pensions Action Group (PAG), which represents...

News: FAS more costly than compensation claims.
July 2, 2007... Byline: Gill Wadsworth Government expenditure on administering and setting up the Financial Assistance Scheme (FAS) outstripped compensation payments by hundreds of thousands of pounds, a Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) report...

News: Funds could be in line for tax rebate.
July 2, 2007... Byline: Ryan Harrison UK pension funds could receive billions of pounds in tax rebates following a European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling. The ECJ judged investment trusts are exempt from VAT and could access a GBP300m rebate, paving...

News in Brief.
July 2, 2007... - HSBC's in-house pension scheme has diverted GBP884m of assets into a duo of new mandates. The fund appointed Axa Investment Managers to run a GBP550m fixed income mandate, and emerging markets manager Ashmore to run GBP334m in its multi-...

News: Pan-European framework for pensions market.
July 2, 2007... Byline: Kristen Paech European banks and insurers have joined forces and revealed radical plans for a unified pensions system that allows UK workers to hold on to savings when working across countries on the continent. Henri de...

News: Funds can afford to take more risks.
July 2, 2007... Byline: Kristen Paech UK pension funds should be bolder with their investments in commodities and ratchet up the use of active management, experts have urged. Catherine Claydon, managing director of the pensions advisory group at...

News: BMA in battle over cap on GPs' pensions.
July 2, 2007... Byline: Ryan Harrison The Department of Health is facing a court battle with family doctors over the government's decision to cap GPs' pensions. The British Medical Association (BMA), which represents over 140,000 UK doctors, is...

News: ISC joins calls for increased disclosure.
July 2, 2007... Byline: Hannah Williams A host of industry bodies have thrown their weight behind a 'comply or explain' initiative encouraging companies to disclose voting records. The Institutional Shareholders Committee (ISC) said the voluntary...

Letter.
July 2, 2007... "I was interested to see the proposal from John Hutton that the government will automatically defer the state pension, meaning it will need to be claimed. If this proposal is accepted, then the section most hit will be those least able to cope....

News in Brief.
July 2, 2007... - Members of defined contribution (DC) pension schemes will be able to download information to their MP3 players under a new initiative from Fidelity. Colin Williams, executive director of DC business at Fidelity, said: "The new MP3...

News: Electra slammed as Lil-lets pensions cut.
July 2, 2007... Byline: Kristen Paech Electra Partners is the latest private equity firm to come under fire after claims from unions that it slashed workers' final salary benefits at sanitary product provider Lil-lets by up to 30%. Electra, which...

News: Fund managers target firms with fresh management.
July 2, 2007... Byline: Ryan Harrison Fund managers are beginning to target companies that have recently overhauled management teams, as they look to capitalise on turnaround success stories. Many major European firms are poised to benefit from recent...

News: JPM mandates provide GBP1bn boost.
July 2, 2007... Byline: Ryan Harrison JPMorgan Worldwide Securities Services has secured five UK mid-size custody mandates worth GBP1bn in total, as it looks to attract pension funds of all sizes. The firm secured briefs including House of Fraser,...

News: LAPFF criticises lack of voting disclosure.
July 2, 2007... Byline: Ryan Harrison The majority of leading UK fund managers still refuse to publicly disclose any details on how they cast their shareholder votes, research found. Just 15% of managers disclosed full records on voting and 22.5%...

News: Push to alternative assets troubles fund managers.
July 2, 2007... Byline: Kristen Paech Fund managers' ability to sustain strong performance in alternative assets has been questioned, following a soaring take-up from UK pension schemes. Watson Wyatt found global alternative assets under management...

News: Staff retention a struggle for industry.
July 2, 2007... Byline: Kristen Paech The UK pensions industry is struggling to attract and retain top talent, despite employees in the sector enjoying the second highest industry pay rise last year at 5.7%. A survey by the Chartered Management...

Current Affairs: Green Regime.
July 2, 2007... Byline: Hannah Williams Once upon a time green investment was practically synonymous with screened investment, and pension funds looking to manage money 'ethically' had to exclude industry sectors from portfolios and run the risk of...

Current Affairs: Pity those poor employers.
July 2, 2007... Byline: Clive Gilchrist Trustees should be robust in their negotiations with employers, the then new Pensions Regulator urged, though a more conciliatory approach emerged in later statements. While there are occasions when trustees and...

The Insider: Personal View - The rise of corporate activism and its impact on equity markets.
July 2, 2007... Byline: Tim Gascoigne One of the major players in shifting equity market trends of late has been investors themselves. By investing in the public securities of a company and then recommending or forcing a company to implement changes to...

The Insider: Technical View - Corporate provision: a lesson from the US.
July 2, 2007... Byline: Simon Fraser The final report of the Pensions Commission urges that one solution to Britain's retirement prospects "must and should entail some combination of higher private pension saving, higher average retirement ages, and an...

Industry Watch: Governance - Brits abroad - a model approach.
July 2, 2007... Byline: Tom Powdrill As the summer holiday season approaches, it's worth considering how we British behave overseas. Our pension funds are increasingly looking for global exposure to equity markets. The recently published annual Pension...

Industry Watch: View from the Bridge.
July 2, 2007... Byline: Norman Russell Same old story It has been a dismal week on the northern line; signal failure leading to journey delay and dislocation has been the norm. The good news, for me at any rate, is that I am off on holiday to Italy...

Industry Watch: Notice Board - NAPF training for scheme trustees.
July 2, 2007... Training for scheme trustees It is clearly essential that trustees responsible for pension scheme decision-making have the knowledge and expertise to make those decisions. NAPF has developed a range of courses to suit both newly appointed...

Pensions Workout: credit default swaps why are cds relevant and what does the current market look like?
July 2, 2007... The credit default swaps (CDS) market has grown at an extraordinary pace in recent years - from GBP316bn in mid-2001 to over GBP13trn by mid-2006, according to the International Swaps and Derivatives Association ((ISDA). Growth has been...

Roundtable.
July 2, 2007... Steve Waygood: The most obvious primary responsibility is the financial one; we have to deliver a healthy return. What we're doing within responsible investment is exploring the different strategies in how you can do that. They can be boiled...

On the Move: The power of three boosts Mercer's RI.
July 2, 2007... Byline: Ryan Harrison Mercer Investment Consulting has bolstered its responsible investment (RI) credentials with the appointment of three sector experts, bringing the size of its dedicated team to nine. Rachel Whittaker joins Mercer...

On the Move: Going Places - PPF renews Churchill's chairman contract.
July 2, 2007... Lawrence Churchill (pic) has been retained as the chair of the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) for a further three years. Churchill's contract expired at the end of June and his reappointment followed a performance appraisal by the office of...

On the Move: Going Places - Myners reports to GLG Partners.
July 2, 2007... Paul Myners (pic) has been appointed as a director to the controversial hedge fund manager GLG Partners. Myners, whose report in 2001 laid out principles of investment for UK pension schemes, joins the London-based company after claims it...

On the Move: Going Places - Bevan executes skills at Halbis.
July 2, 2007... HSBC's active asset management specialist Halbis has hired Tarne Bevan as head of trade execution. Bevan will focus on boosting the integration of trading strategies with Halbis' investment decisions. The role requires execution,...

On the Move: Top 4 Moves.
July 2, 2007... 01 - Ian D'Costa OLD Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, pensions lawyer, responsible for consulting with schemes on the PPF NEW Sacker & Partners, lawyer, advising pensions trustees Tel: 020 7329 6699 02 - John Phillips ...

News: Capital binned again for failing to hit targets.
July 9, 2007... Byline: Hannah Williams A local authority pension fund is the latest scheme to sack Capital International Asset Management following persistent underperformance. Kingston sacked the struggling fund manager from a GBP98m global equity...

News: Regulator denies FSD claims.
July 9, 2007... The Pensions Regulator has refuted claims it reprimanded Bermuda-based Sea Containers over its pension liabilities to deliberately avoid breaching human rights laws in the UK. A spokesman said it was "absolutely not the case" that the...

This Week: Generating some girl power.
July 9, 2007... Byline: Gill Wadsworth Yet again it has taken intervention from the House of Lords to ensure the forthcoming pensions bill isn't a complete mess. This time the upper house had to step in to allow women with patchy working histories to buy...

News: UK schemes push for 80% carbon emissons target.
July 9, 2007... Byline: Hannah Williams UK pension funds worth a combined GBP75bn are lobbying the government for tougher targets on carbon cuts. The draft climate change bill, published in March, proposed legislation to lower carbon emissions by 60%...

News: BNY Mellon resolves conflict with buyout.
July 9, 2007... Byline: Ryan Harrison Recently merged BNY Mellon has stubbed out fears its asset servicing head Nadine Chakar could fall foul of conflict of interest rules by bringing ABN Amro Mellon under its wing. As chief executive of ABN Amro...

News: Local authorities misjudge mortality.
July 9, 2007... Byline: Ryan Harrison Critical inconsistencies exist in the mortality assumptions used by local authority pension schemes, consultants have warned. John Saunders, actuarial director at BDO Stoy Hayward Investment Management, said in...

News in Brief.
July 9, 2007... - Railpen Investments has published a corporate governance policy aimed at companies in Singapore. The guidelines highlight governance issues of interest to long-term pension fund investors and outline Railpen's approach to shareholder...

News: More funds opt for responsible path.
July 9, 2007... Byline: Hannah Williams Pension funds are getting to grips with responsible investment and actively challenging companies over corporate governance, a UN report has found. The study released by the UN principles of responsible...

News: Pension funds oversubscribing to private equity.
July 9, 2007... Byline: Hannah Williams UK pension fund investments account for more than two-thirds of the private equity market, according to fund managers, prompting concerns schemes are oversubscribing. Speaking at the government select committee...

News: Personal accounts do not go far enough.
July 9, 2007... Byline: Gill Wadsworth The proposed personal accounts are a disaster waiting to happen and represent the latest failure by government to be progressive on pensions, according to Friends Provident. Jeremy Ward, head of Friends...

News: Firms answer calls for more disclosure.
July 9, 2007... Byline: Ryan Harrison The fund management industry has insisted transparency on engagement and voting with companies has improved, despite fierce criticism from pension groups that managers fall woefully short of public disclosure. ...

News: O'Brien sworn in as pensions minister.
July 9, 2007... Byline: Ryan Harrison The recent government reshuffle has seen former solicitor general Mike O'Brien become the new minister for pensions reform, replacing James Purnell, who landed the role as secretary of state for culture, media and...

News in Brief.
July 9, 2007... The most pressing concern for the majority of HR and finance directors is derisking their firm's pension scheme, research has found. Gissings claimed pension executives said the most crucial issue affecting them was reducing overall...

News: FTSE flourish turns focus towards bonds.
July 9, 2007... Byline: Christine Senior A spike in FTSE 100 pension surpluses has triggered a debate on trustees' best strategies to lock in gains. Pension Capital Strategies (PCS) estimated the total pension surplus for FTSE 100 companies had risen...

News: Women offered pension lifeline by House of Lords.
July 9, 2007... Byline: Hannah Williams Women have been given greater scope to qualify for the basic state pension following a government defeat in the House of Lords. An amendment to the pensions bill came after the Lords voted 179 to 86 to allow...

News: Newsquest rattles NUJ over changes.
July 9, 2007... The newspaper publisher Newsquest has proposed radical changes to its pension scheme to plug a GBP65m deficit. The firm has put a range of options to staff in a bid to address the shortfall, including increasing contributions from 6% to...

News: PPF index is 'waste of time and money'.
July 9, 2007... Byline: Ryan Harrison The Pension Protection Fund's (PPF) monthly index of UK pension scheme funding positions has come under fire for inappropriate use of resources and for hampering trustees' efforts to control investment risk. The...

News: Unused holiday quotas soar in pensions sector.
July 9, 2007... Byline: CS The number of pensions executives refusing to take all their holiday entitlement has rock-eted over the last four years. Figures from the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) revealed 63% of pensions chiefs will fail to use...

News: Schemes put all eggs in equity basket.
July 9, 2007... Byline: CS The desire of pension funds to manage risk relative to liabilities is not dampening their appetite for equities, research found. Hewitt Associates said 40% of schemes surveyed had 70% or more of their funds in return-seeking...

Current Affairs: Time to learn.
July 9, 2007... Byline: Gill Wadsworth It is unlikely running the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is the job MPs were most anxious to secure when new prime minister Gordon Brown conducted the cabinet overhaul. A complicated, contentious and...

Current Affairs: Saving the post-modern pension.
July 9, 2007... Byline: Lindsay Tomlinson Andrew Marr's TV series, 'The History of Modern Britain', charted the UK's development from post-war austerity to being the world's all-singing all- dancing financial capital. The Attlee government, in daunting...

The Insider: Personal View - No more half measures: it's now time for Brown to turn it around.
July 9, 2007... Byline: David Laws It seems Gordon Brown is hoping if he talks about his vision for pension saving enough, we won't notice what he's actually doing. A national pension savings scheme is a good idea, but how will it work when large portions...

The Insider: Technical View - Standing out from the crowd.
July 9, 2007... Byline: Antoine Drean The majority of financial institutions hold private equity directly or indirectly in their portfolios. Private equity assets under management currently amount to around GBP746bn. This is almost 100 times larger than...

Industry Watch: Governance - Every little helps the labour rights vote.
July 9, 2007... Byline: Tom Powdrill The recent annual general meeting (AGM) of supermarket giant Tesco proved to be one of the more interesting company meetings so far this season. Ben Birnberg, company secretary of campaign group War on Want, had...

Industry Watch: Notice Board - NAPF conferences and seminars.
July 9, 2007... Focus on DC Developing DC - today, tomorrow and 2012 NAPF Autumn Conference 2007 Tuesday October 16, One Great George Street, Westminster The move from defined benefit (DB) to defined contribution (DC) pension schemes is...

Industry Watch: View from the Bridge.
July 9, 2007... Italy abolishes pensions This week's View from the bridge comes not from the big bridge in London, but from a small bridge near Urbino in the Le Marche region of Italy. Researching Le Marche (which is to the east of Tuscany but,...

Pensions Workout.
July 9, 2007... Credit default swaps (CDS) can be written in the event of any number of credit events, including bankruptcy, default, failure to pay or restructuring of the reference entity. The most common maturity for CDS is five years, although three, seven...

On the Move: Douglas drives DC plans at BlackRock.
July 9, 2007... Byline: Ryan Harrison BlackRock has scooped industry heavyweight Emma Douglas (pic) from rival Threadneedle to spearhead its expansion plans for the defined contribution (DC) market. With over 20 years' experience in the financial...

On the Move: Going Places - Hewitt bags Hayes to improve client advice.
July 9, 2007... Hewitt Associates has boosted its UK retirement consulting team with the appointment of Antony Hayes (pic) from the Alexander Forbes group. Based in London, Hayes will head up an initiative to improve pensions advice to Hewitt's corporate...

On the Move: Going Places - ABN Amro poaches two from Credit Suisse.
July 9, 2007... ABN Amro Asset Management has shored up its global emerging market debt business with the appointment of Tomasz Stadnik (pic) and Chris Kelly from rival investment house Credit Suisse. The duo managed a portfolio worth nearly GBP750bn at...

On the Move: Going Places - Sutton tagged for investment consulting team.
July 9, 2007... Watson Wyatt has expanded its investment consulting business with the appointment of Chris Sutton (pic) from Barclays Global Investors (BGI). He will form part of Watson Wyatt's global thinking ahead group (TAG), led by Roger Urwin, its...

On the Move: Top 4 Moves.
July 9, 2007... 01. Rachel Whittaker OLD - Previously covered European consumer and business services companies for Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch NEW - Mercer Investment Consulting, manager researcher Tel: 020 7626 6000 02. Lawrence...

News in Brief: The number - GBP4bn.
July 9, 2007... The total pension surplus of FTSE 100 companies at the end of June

News: Hain continues to evade campaigners' requests.
July 10, 2007... Byline: Gill Wadsworth The new secretary of state for work and pensions has so far ignored campaigners' requests for a meeting to discuss pension compensation, despite tackling the issue in parliament. Two weeks ago the Pensions Action...

News: Campaigners pin hopes on third vote.
July 16, 2007... Byline: Gill Wadsworth Gordon Brown faces his first humiliating defeat in the House of Commons this week as MPs come under renewed pressure to back amendments to the pensions bill. Following defeat in the House of Lords on...

News: Sea Containers could kick FSD into long grass.
July 16, 2007... Byline: Ryan Harrison The Pensions Regulator's framework for a financial support direction (FSD) could see leasing firm Sea Containers avoid any reprimand for months, a lawyer has claimed. Steve Hull, head of pensions at law firm...

News: The future's bright, actuary.
July 16, 2007... Byline: Gill Wadsworth Pensions boffins is the most likely phrase The Sun would use to refer to our industry's actuaries - and you'd probably come across the word 'egghead' in the same article. On PW, obviously we tend to avoid these...

News: Civil service AVCs under the spotlight.
July 16, 2007... Byline: Ryan Harrison Twenty-five government departments are facing a blanket investigation into civil servants' supplementary pension arrangements as part of a campaign against Whitehall inefficiency. David Simpson, an MP for the...

News: D&B errors shake faith in PPF's risk-based levy.
July 16, 2007... Byline: Hannah Williams The reliability of Dun & Bradstreet's (D&B) failure scores for calculating the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) levy has been thrown into question after mistakes were discovered in the system. Errors were found in...

News: P&G drops poor performing manager.
July 16, 2007... Byline: Henry Money The GBP879m Procter & Gamble (P&G) pension fund has ditched troubled asset manager Capital International after a major revamp of its scheme arrangements. P&G dropped Capital over underperformance in European and Far...

News in Brief.
July 16, 2007... - Union members in the Local Government Pension Scheme have backed scheme changes by a nine-to-one margin. Leaders from Unite said the endorsement followed improved benefit accrual promises and the commitment to retain final salary...

News: Mortality estimates still off the mark.
July 16, 2007... Byline: Gill Wadsworth Positive improvements in occupational pension scheme funding could be undermined, following admissions from the actuarial profession that mortality assumptions have not kept pace with rapid increases in life...

News: PW survey reveals work still to be done on governance.
July 16, 2007... Byline: Hannah Williams Fund managers are still failing to adequately engage with companies to ensure good governance, according to UK pension schemes. Figures from Pensions Week's third Trusty 30 survey found 89% of pension funds felt...

News: Fall in private sector pensions continues.
July 16, 2007... Byline: Henry Money Membership of public and private occupational pension schemes dropped by half a million between 2004 and 2006, the Office of National Statistics (ONS) revealed. This included a sharp fall in active members, with...

News: Public success nets triple win for Xafinity.
July 16, 2007... Byline: Ryan Harrison Xafinity Paymaster has boosted its public sector pension credentials with a trio of back office wins covering 15,000 workers. The firm will provide administration, payments and annuity services for the Ministry...

News: Arms investment stirs up concerns.
July 16, 2007... Byline: Hannah Williams Local authority pension funds have more than GBP300m of assets invested in the arms trade, according to research. A study from Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) found 75 public sector funds held investments...

News in Brief.
July 16, 2007... - The Bank of England has told its 1,700 staff their generous public sector pension benefits will be dramatically reduced. In a letter to workers, the Bank's governor, Mervyn King, said they would have to work until age 65 instead of age 60...

News: PPF defends role of scheme index.
July 16, 2007... Byline: Ryan Harrison The Pension Protection Fund (PPF) has hit back at critics of its UK pension scheme index, after claims it was a waste of time and a misuse of levy payers' money. Partha Dasgupta, chief executive of the PPF, said...

News: Brown denies plans for Gurkha benefit review.
July 16, 2007... Byline: Hannah Williams The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has denied it will review retired Gurkhas' pension benefits to bring them in line with their army peers. The Gurkha Army Ex-serviceman's Association claimed Gordon Brown had...

News: Shepherds ploughs GBP24m into Barings.
July 16, 2007... Byline: Hannah Williams The Shepherds Friendly Life Society pension scheme has responded to market instability and hired Baring Asset Management to run GBP24m of assets. The mutual insurance company is placing GBP8m into a diversified...