Pensions Week articles from June 2002

Pensions Week archives from June 2002

News: Missing: oe1.5m in NHS fraud.(National Health Service)(Brief Article)
June 3, 2002... The National Health Service Pensions Agency (NHSPA) has yet to trace nearly GBP750,000 of overpaid pensions four years after an investigation that revealed over GBP1.5m missing from the fund. The Audit Commission investigated fraud...

News: Enforcing GIPS is a false economy, says DeAM's Ellis.(Global Investment Performance Standards)(Brief Article)
June 3, 2002... Employing the Global Investment Performance Standards (GIPS) can be a costly and frustrating process and is barely essential for investment managers trying to retain clients, a global fund manager said. Peter Ellis, managing director of...

News: Thompson mourns Darling's departure.(National Association of Pension Funds head Peter Thompson)(Brief Article)
June 3, 2002... The head of the National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) said he was sorry to see Alistair Darling moved from the Department for Work and Pensions following a Cabinet reshuffle last week. Andrew Smith, formerly chief secretary to the...

News: Jubilee special - Jubilee diary - 50 years in pensions.(Chronology)
June 3, 2002... 1952 - QE2's coronation 1956 - Personal pensions (self-employed retirement annuities) invented 1962 - Association of Superannuation Funds rebranded as National Association of Pension Funds 1964 - Perpetuities and Accumulations Act...

News: Jubilee special - Maxwell: snatch of the century.(Maxwell Communication Corp. pension fund scandal)(Brief Article)
June 3, 2002... The biggest pensions misappropriation in UK history was uncovered in the wake of the death of media mogul Robert Maxwell in November 1991. It soon became clear that through a web of businesses in the Maxwell empire, he had raided approximately...

News: Jubilee special - Strong competition for PW investment award.
June 3, 2002... Metal Box, West Midlands, Aberdeen and Willis pension funds will be among several funds on tenterhooks for the next three weeks as they wait to see if they are the investment champions at this year's PW Pension Awards on 27 June. The...

News: Jubilee special - Maxwell reigns over us.
June 3, 2002... The Maxwell scandal has been voted the biggest pensions event of Queen Elizabeth's 50 year reign, according to a poll of pensions experts by PW. Despite the recent Equitable Life debacle, mis-selling of personal pensions in the late 1980s,...

News: Jubilee special - Jubilee Watch.(occupational pensions)(Column)
June 3, 2002... You wouldn't expect me to pass up this opportunity to restate just what a huge success occupational pensions have been in the last half century. When King George VI died in 1952 at the age of 56, men of his generation who lived to...

News: ACA grill gov't for laissez-faire attitude.(Association of Consulting Actuaries)(Brief Article)
June 3, 2002... A senior actuary accused the government of complacency over the closure of final salary schemes and called for imaginative ways of promoting pensions. Mike Arnold, chairman of the Association of Consulting Actuaries (ACA), said: "Our alarm...

News: Legislation a hindrance to progress.
June 3, 2002... Proposed legislation to implement aspects of the Myners recommendations flies in the face of the government's pensions simplification review, professional organisations warned. According to the Institute of Actuaries (IoA) and the Pensions...

News: DC support from gov't.(defined contribution)(Brief Article)
June 3, 2002... The government admitted that defined contribution (DC) was a "comparatively bad buy" due to lower employer contributions when set alongside final salary schemes. Baroness Hollis of Heigham, parliamentary under secretary of state for work and...

News: Industry needs to change priorities.(Brief Article)(Editorial)
June 3, 2002... The pensions industry needs to stop dwelling on switches from defined benefit to defined contribution pension plans and focus on compulsory contributions, a consultant says. Employee benefits firm Gissings argues that the real crisis facing...

News: Risks unheeded by trustees, says MIC.(Mercer Investment Consulting)(Brief Article)
June 3, 2002... Pension funds are leaving themselves open to unnecessary risks by failing to monitor their custody arrangements, it was claimed. Mercer Investment Consulting (MIC) said that pension schemes must give wider consideration to custody and asset...

News: Pickering to investigate Pru.(Alan Pickering, Prudential Portfolio Management Ventures)
June 3, 2002... Alan Pickering is to examine the underfunding of a pension scheme whose members blame a Prudential company for leaving it short of GBP9m. The study will form part of Pickering's simplification review under his consumer protection remit. ...

News: Flexible schemes would cost more, says Unison.(Brief Article)
June 3, 2002... Plans to introduce more flexibility into council workers' pensions came under fire from a union which claimed more costs will result for the local government pension scheme. Public service union Unison argued costs were already high and...

News: Equitable board candidate cries "foul" over proxy voting.(Brief Article)
June 3, 2002... An independent candidate who stood for election to Equitable Life's board hit out last week at the use of proxy voting to secure the status quo. Paul Braithwaite - the candidate and chairman of the Equitable Members Action Group (EMAG) -...

News: Left Field - Rethinking strategies.(pensions reform)(Editorial)
June 3, 2002... I doubt whether the bookmakers were prepared to accept bets that Alistair Darling would move from work and pensions when the expected summer government reshuffle happened last month. Change at work and pensions was crucial. The government's...

News: Closure of schemes reflected in smaller businesses.
June 3, 2002... A quarter of UK small businesses intend to close or wind-up their final salary schemes within the next year. Research from consulting actuary Hazell Carr found that 25% of small to medium-sized businesses intended to mirror larger firms by...

News: FSA behind drive to reform with-profit funds.(Financial Services Authority)(Brief Article)
June 3, 2002... Providers have welcomed proposals to shake up with-profit funds and hope public confidence in the products will be restored.The Financial Services Authority (FSA) set out a wide-ranging programme last week to improve the governance and...

News: Temp workers regulations delayed.(Brief Article)
June 3, 2002... Regulations giving temporary workers equal rights, including pension rights, as full-time employees have been delayed. The regulations were supposed to be in place next month and is the second hitch in getting rules in place. Draft...

News: Actuaries figure annuity market fears are a worldwide phenomenon.(Watson Wyatt Worldwide)(Brief Article)
June 3, 2002... The UK is not alone in facing problems in its annuity market, with systems across the globe confronting equal or worse challenges. Consultant Watson Wyatt concluded that the UK's concerns with annuities were no more than elsewhere following...

News: Ombudsman Watch.
June 3, 2002... Remarkable jubilee numbers When Her Majesty the Queen came to the throne, her subjects over the age of 60 numbered 7,890,000 out of a total population of 50 million. Now in her golden jubilee year her subjects over the age of 60 number...

News: Property - Property good value all round.(Brief Article)(Industry Overview)
June 3, 2002... The All Property return improved in April, and was slightly higher than March at 0.8%, following an uplift in rental values. Over the quarter, the retail sector saw the greatest improvement - the one- month return for April 2002 reached...

News: Comino captures South Tyneside IT systems contract from Lynx Heywood.(South Tyneside Metropolitan Borough Council pension plan)(United Kingdom)(information technology)
June 3, 2002... Personal computers services provider Comino has wrested a council software administration contract from the local government pension scheme market leader,in a deal worth GBP250,000. Lynx Heywood, which has the largest market share in the sector...

News: Cogent to reap the benefits of AMP/BNP merger.
June 3, 2002... The investment operations business of AMP has been acquired by BNP Paribas Securities Services in a deal worth GBP228m. Cogent, which provides outsourcing and administration services under the AMP umbrella, will combine with the custody and...

News: GlaxoSmithKline and Pearson are cream of the crop for SRI.(Brief Article)
June 3, 2002... GlaxoSmithKline and Pearson are among the top rated FTSE 100 companies on sustainability grounds according to a major fund manager. Morley Fund Management announced it now ranks companies in the FTSE100 index according to social and...

News: FTSE4Good raises environmental stakes.(Brief Article)
June 3, 2002... Admission to index provider FTSE's ethical indices has been made tougher for companies that ruin the environment. Following the FTSE group's decision to revise its investment criteria (PW 29.4.02) the indexer now categorises companies with...

Opinion: Leader - Is Queen Betty a pensions radical?(Brief Article)
June 3, 2002... Fifty years is a long time in anybody's language - actuaries excluded - and the reign of Queen Elizabeth has seen several sectoral shifts across the UK. Pension provision, however, appears to be returning in many respects to how it looked in...

Opinion: Legal View - The joys of deemed buyback.
June 3, 2002... Although not widely known, hidden away in the depths of the Contracting Out Regulations 1996, and the CA15 manual published by the Inland Revenue National Insurance Contributions Office (IRNICO), there lurks a mechanism for reinstating members...

Opinion: Letter from Europe - Looking to smaller companies.
June 3, 2002... It is now a widespread belief among investors that returns from global equity markets are unlikely to be very compelling over the next few years. While they may not slip into negative territory, there are few who believe that we will see a...

Opinion: Letters - Sorting out a fine with-profits mess.
June 3, 2002... The latest Financial Services Authority (FSA) disclosure proposals willl not help existing policyholders to get out of their long term contracts with a certain knowledge of the value they are being offered, whether by the company (if...

Special Report: Employer appeal.
June 3, 2002... In order to recruit the best staff, companies are being forced to re-examine the value they offer to an employee. Originally, it was the employer who selected staff by identifying people with the hard technical skills and experience needed to...

Special Report: Let's talk about it.
June 3, 2002... Executive remuneration and reward is a burning issue for companies, from directors' pay and "fat cat" culture headlines, to well publicised concerns over pension cost and provision. Increased shareholder activism has brought pay and performance...

Governance Watch: Mergers and separations.(Kingfisher to purchase Castorama)(Brief Article)
June 3, 2002... Kingfisher, the home improvement and electrical retail business, was in the news last month as it attempted to complete the takeover of French DIY group, Castorama. The EGM where approval is sought for the offer to acquire the remaining...

People on the move: My first job - STEVE EDWARDS, PENSIONS DIRECTOR, AMP CORPORATE PENSIONS.(Brief Article)
June 3, 2002... What was your first job? Pensions administrator with Equity & Law. What made you stand out over other applicants? My enthusiasm and willingness to learn. Did it offer a pension? Yes. What did you spend your first pay...

People on the move: Clifton has pulse on biotech stocks.(Merrill Lynch Investment Managers)
June 3, 2002... Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (MLIM) has appointed a former investment consultant and relationship manager from Watson Wyatt. Paul Clifton joins the global team, taking on responsibility for research into pharmaceutical, biotech and...

People on the move: Barings finds true grit in Grice.(Brief Article)
June 3, 2002... Baring Asset Management has appointed Paul Grice as director of institutional business. He will specialise on fixed income business. Grice joins from Lombard Odier International Portfolio Management, where he headed up the portfolio...

People on the move: Hymans thinks two heads are better than one.(Hymans Robertson has appointed Clare Gardner and Vince McEntegart)(Brief Article)
June 3, 2002... Consultant Hymans Robertson has appointed Clare Gardner and Vince McEntegart as co-heads of manager research. Both Gardner and McEntegart have worked in the investment practice for some time as consultants. Responsibilities will be...

People on the move: Jenkins second to none for top job.(Gissings appoints Archie Jenkins)(Brief Article)
June 3, 2002... Employee benefits firm, Gissings, has appointed Archie Jenkins as chairman of its board. He replaces Robert Morison who has retired after serving 14 years on the board. He will remain in the company as a consultant. Jenkins was...

People on the move: Partnership promotion for Ivey.(Towers Perrin promotes Robert Ivey)(Brief Article)
June 3, 2002... Consulting and actuarial firm Towers Perrin has promoted Robert Ivey as partner. Ivey is the current head of the financial planning practice. He leads a team which advises organisations on how financial products, together with benefits...

Whistle Blower: Jennings feels the Force.(Mick Jennings of Comino)(Brief Article)
June 3, 2002... Karaoke king and director of software provider Comino, Mick Jennings, is turning further to the dark side. Jennings pointed out that in the new Star Wars film, Attack of the Clones, the clones are made on a world called Comino. Readers may...

Whistle Blower: A midsummer nightmare.(Greater Manchester Pension Fund's Ged Dale had a vivid dream)(Brief Article)
June 3, 2002... As votes for the pensions event of the last fifty years flooded in, Wb hears some pension fund voters dreamed it up. Greater Manchester Pension Fund's Ged Dale had a more vivid dream than most. He told a Wb spy that in his dream the...

Whistle Blower: Happiness is a sing-song.(Accounting Standards Board boss Mary Keegan)(Brief Article)
June 3, 2002... Whistle blower hears that the country's head bean-counter was in tears last month after spending a night with a roomful of actuaries. Accounting Standards Board boss Mary Keegan's tears, however, had little to do with the assaults she has...

Market Monitor: UK in focus (22.5.02 to 28.5.02).(United Kingdom's stock market)(Brief Article)(Industry Overview)
June 3, 2002... The UK stock marked continued to grow weaker and recorded its fifth consecutive slide as it finished the trading session a net 45.3 on Wednesday. The FTSE 100 was hammered by poor performance from the oil sector after the oil price was...

News Just In...: PSolve breaks into LA market.(local authority market)(PSolve takes over pensions business of Sector Pension Solutions)(Brief Article)
June 3, 2002... PSolve, the investment consulting arm of Punter Southall, has taken over the pensions business of public sector consulting firm Sector Pension Solutions. The move is part of Punter's stated aim to break into the local authority market and...

News Just In...: Hackney outsources admin to cut costs.(Hackney, England pension fund put out its administration for tender as a cost-cutting exercise)(Brief Article)
June 3, 2002... The GBP450m London Borough of Hackney pension fund has put out its administration for tender as part of a cost-cutting exercise. The administration is currently carried out in-house but will be outsourced in September. Jim Whitten,...

News Just In...: No plans to introduce compulsion.(compulsory occupational pensions)(United Kingdom)(Brief Article)
June 3, 2002... The government has denied plans to imminently introduce compulsion. Responding to reports in the press a spokeswoman for the Department for Work and Pensions said: "All I can say is that at the moment there are no plans to introduce...