Pensions Week articles from June 2005

Pensions Week archives from June 2005

News: Multi-manager MM loses three key staff.
June 20, 2005... Multi-manager MM Asset Management has been rocked by the departure of three senior employees amid signs of disappointing recent performance. The firm, formerly Attica Asset Management, has lost Nick Slater, director of marketing and client...

News: People's Coalition urges Turner to be radical.
June 20, 2005... The Trade Union Congress (TUC) has joined forces with charities to call for urgent pension reform. Which?, Help the Aged, Age Concern and the TUC have formed the People's Pension Coalition, in a bid to present a united voice on pension...

News: Popat quits NTGI for hedge funds.
June 20, 2005... Amit Popat has resigned as head of UK business development at Northern Trust Global Investments (NTGI) to embark on a career in hedge funds. Popat, who helped build NTGI's manager-of-manager business alongside Kate Harper, fellow head of...

News: Unaffordability is the strongest disincentive to retirement saving.
June 20, 2005... Lack of cash is the most important hurdle to people saving for their retirement, according to government research. A report by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), which looked at ways to inform and entice the public to take up...

News: Passport plan guarantees Gov't actuary approval.
June 20, 2005... Firms pitching for government business can now passport future employees into their new pension schemes through a new multi-employer pension plan launched last week. Under the First MultiPlan, launched by Pan Trustees, companies tendering...

News: F&C buys Martin Currie private equity fund-of-funds arm.
June 20, 2005... F&C Asset Management has bought the private equity fund-of-funds business of Martin Currie Investment Management for an undisclosed amount, to meet increasing demand from institutional and retail clients for alternative assets. Jason...

News: Tax breaks could jump start pension saving rate, says ABI.
June 20, 2005... Tax breaks and financial incentives for employers should be introduced as part of a range of measures to encourage higher rates of pensions saving according to the Association of British Insurers (ABI). The new director general of the ABI,...

News: BNP Paribas launches total-return notes.
June 20, 2005... Pension funds face a growing array of exotic credit investment options following BNP Paribas's launch of total-return notes last week. The Dynamo notes, which will be managed by Credit Agricole Asset Management (CAAM), are aimed at...

News: Be ready for age discrimination laws.
June 20, 2005... Industry bodies and the government have joined forces to launch a new campaign to ensure employers are ready for the age discrimination laws coming into force in October. The Age Partnership Group (APG), which is funded by the Department...

News: Too many pages in Regulator's guidance.
June 20, 2005... Guidance from the Pensions Regulator on the new codes of practice has attracted fresh criticism for being too long and complicated. Punter Southall, Pinsent Mason and Law Debenture have all raised concerns that trustees will find it...

News: North Yorks switches investment strategy following poor performance by manager.
June 20, 2005... The GBP880m North Yorkshire Pension Fund has radically altered its investment strategy in the face of severe underfunding and poor performance. Henderson Global Investors, which had previously managed a GBP194m mandate as part of a four...

News: Carbon report urges SRI approach to investment decisions by trustees.
June 20, 2005... Pension fund trustees have a growing fiduciary care to consider the impact of climate change when choosing asset managers, according to a carbon emission report published last week. The Carbon 100, published by Trucost, an environmental...

News: Don't miss future editions of the Trustee Masterclass.
June 20, 2005... Have you been keeping up to date with the Trustee Masterclass series produced as a joint initiative between PW and Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (MLIM)? The Trustee Masterclass aims to help UK pension fund trustees with the increasing...

News: Union action forces Imerys back to the table.
June 20, 2005... French-owned materials company Imerys has agreed to negotiate over changes to its UK pension fund after it was threatened with mass industrial strike action. Imerys has been forced to the bargaining table following votes for strike action...

News: Millions heading for poverty in old age.
June 20, 2005... Retirement planning among the younger generation is in a dire state with millions heading for poverty in old age, according to research published by Prudential. The average 30 year-old would need to save at least GBP400 a month to receive...

News: Sting in the tale - Turner's call for change.
June 20, 2005... While we still have little to no idea of how the current round of pension reforms is going to pan out, we are getting tantalising clues as to where the thinking of the Pension Commission may be leading us. Adair Turner, the head of the...

News: Scheme funding laws under fire.
June 20, 2005... Punter Southall has attacked key aspects of the new scheme funding legislation including the annual funding statement and the statutory concept of prudence for defined benefit scheme funding decisions. The statements are part of the...

News: Ombudsman watch.
June 20, 2005... Mistakes No one is perfect. We all make mistakes - including pension fund administrators. The provision of an incorrect estimate of benefits is one of the more common pension mistakes. The more complicated the pension system, the greater...

News: Pan-Europe fund hopes to raise E2bn.
June 20, 2005... Former Hermes directors Peter Butler and Steve Brown are set to launch a pan- European fund designed to raise more than E2bn. Governance for Owners, (GFO) founded by Butler and Brown late last year, will launch one or more pan-European...

News: PwC sets out its vision for the future of pensions.
June 20, 2005... The pensions crisis could be solved by increasing the basic state pension and creating a government-sponsored savings account, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) claimed in a consultation paper published last week. As part of preparations for...

News: NAPF notice board.
June 20, 2005... CGN Annual Conference 2005 6 to 8 July, Guildhall, City of London The International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN) is the leading investor-led authority on corporate governance, providing a network for the exchange of views and...

Governance update: Governance changes at Shell.
June 20, 2005... Following the controversy over Shell's recategorisation of reserves in January 2004, during the past year, the company has conducted two transformatory reviews with regard to the structure and governance of the Shell Group and the remuneration...

Spotlight: The decline and fall of UK equities.
June 20, 2005... At the National Association of Pension Funds' investment conference in March, true adherents of equity investing were thin on the ground. The over- dependency of UK pension funds on equities is now widely accepted, the flaws in the approach...

Special report: Custodians making a comeback.
June 20, 2005... Custody banks, after spending years languishing at the bottom of the pension fund trustee's agenda, are making a comeback. For years, these unglamorous institutions quietly kept the books for billions of pounds worth of pension assets while...

Opinion: Leader - Towards a better admin experience for schemes.
June 20, 2005... One of the oddities of the pensions industry is that there is a lack of common standards in areas such as scheme and investment administration. One side-effect of this is that pension scheme administration, whether undertaken in-house or...

Opinion: Personal view - Dealing with the paradigm shift.
June 20, 2005... The asset management industry is currently going through a paradigm shift, as the demands placed on pension funds to meet their obligations are passed on to the industry. Traditionally, well capitalised pension systems such as those in the UK,...

Opinion: Inside view - Small caps outshine their bigger brothers.
June 20, 2005... Over the past two years, small cap stocks have delivered excellent returns, far greater than those of large cap equities. Since the market low in March 2003, the FTSE Small Cap ex IT index has gained more than 70% compared with a 37%...

Special focus: Derivatives - Contents.
June 20, 2005... Derivatives have long been a feature of UK pension fund investment strategies but the instruments have not been used to their full potential. As is so often the case, it takes a disaster to force people into action and the bear market and...

Special focus: Derivatives - Taking a closer look into the world of derivatives.
June 20, 2005... Derivatives have long been a feature of UK pension schemes, but they have not been used to their full potential to date. This is largely because of a natural aversion on the part of trustees to risk, and the average lay trustee continues to...

Special focus: Derivatives - Learning a lesson from the Dutch.
June 20, 2005... Traditionally, pension funds have adopted a macro performance-matching approach to their liability profiles. In short, investment philosophy has arisen around the core driver of return optimisation rather than risk control. This methodology has...

Special focus: Derivatives - Company profile - BNP Paribas.
June 20, 2005... Background BNP Paribas is a global institution operating in 85 countries worldwide with solid roots in Europe, leading positions in Asia and an active presence in the Americas. Rated Aa2 by Moody's, AA by Standard & Poor's and AA by Fitch,...

People on the move: Strategy roles for Berry and Williams at Mercer.
June 20, 2005... Mercer Investment Consulting has appointed Fred Berry as a senior investment consultant and Cara Williams as a member of the global management team, both based in London. Berry will advise clients in key investment areas including...

People on the move: Smedley, Moore take senior posts at Insight.
June 20, 2005... Insight Investment has appointed Tony Smedley as a senior director and Eric Moore as a senior portfolio manager in its core UK equity team. Smedley will have specific responsibility for leading the investment programme in continental...

People on the move: Brown appointed as independent trustee.
June 20, 2005... Law firm Thomas Eggar has appointed Brendan Brown as a senior independent trustee for the pension team. Brown's role will include advising trustee bodies and acting as a professional trustee for pension schemes. Prior to joining Thomas...

People on the move: Tyler to develop DC at Winterthur.
June 20, 2005... Winterthur Life UK, part of the Credit Suisse Group, has appointed David Tyler as a defined contribution (DC) consultant to its group business division. Tyler joins Winterthur from GE Life, where he was head of strategic accounts. His role...

News Just In... : Lib Dems, Turner clash over reforms.
June 20, 2005... The Liberal Democrats have sparked conflict with the Pensions Commission over how to reform the state pension system. David Laws, Liberal Democrat shadow secretary of state for work and pensions, and Charles Kennedy, leader of the party,...

News Just In... : Late publication of A-day regs hampering schemes.
June 20, 2005... A third-party pensions administrator has told David Blunkett and his ministerial team at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) that the late publication of A-day regulations means that schemes are running out of time to be ready for...

News: No DWP support for ASW case fast track.
June 27, 2005... Thousands of Allied Steel & Wire (ASW) workers may have to wait months, or even years, before they hear the outcome of their case in the European Court of Justice (ECJ) following the government's refusal to allow it to be treated as a priority....

News: Claybrook top two defect to software rival Aquila.
June 27, 2005... Pensions software provider Claybrook has lost two top players to rival company Aquila, as the sale of the business to a private equity firm nears completion. Aquila snatched Chris Connelly, head of development and Ian Nelson, operations...

News: Legg Mason gains controlling share of Permal.
June 27, 2005... Legg Mason has aquired a controlling interest in the $1.4bn (GBP0.8bn) multi- manager Permal Group. The top-tier global asset manager will acquire an 80% interest in Permal, with the right to buy the remaining 20% over the next four years....

News: Academic finds flaws in deficit accounting.
June 27, 2005... Pension scheme deficits have been significantly overstated by the flawed methodology of FRS 17 and IAS 19 accounting standards, according to Con Keating, principal at finance research body the Financial Development Centre. In a...

News: AVC equity exposure falls to three-year low.
June 27, 2005... Equity exposure of additional voluntary contribution (AVC) schemes have dropped down to almost 30% lower than three years ago. A report by Watson Wyatt found that the average allocation to UK and overseas equities of with-profit AVCs was at...

News: Vebnet makes early profit as demand for its software grows.
June 27, 2005... Employee benefits software supplier Vebnet is set to make a profit a year earlier than expected, as a result of its continuing strong growth, it claimed. In a trading update for 10 months to 30 April 2005, Vebnet said its turnover was up...

News: PPF errs on the side of caution with fixed income mandates.
June 27, 2005... A cautious investment strategy has been adopted by the government's Pension Protection Fund (PPF), as Pimco Europe and Insight Investment have each snapped up a GBP75m fixed income mandate. Partha Dasgupta, director of investment and...

News: Mercer looses plumbing industry mandate to Hewitt and Watson Wyatt.
June 27, 2005... Mercer Investment Consulting has been dropped by the plumbing industry's pension fund for both investment and actuarial advice. The GBP900m Plumbing and Mechanical Services (UK) Industry pension scheme has appointed Hewitt Associates as...

News: Morley, Derwent Living create student housing property fund.
June 27, 2005... Morley Fund Management and Derwent Living have teamed up to launch a UK property fund investing solely in student accommodation. The fund - the beach student accommodation fund - is believed to be the first of its kind and will be a...

News: EShare to investigate admin system at The Pensions Trust.
June 27, 2005... The Pensions Trust has appointed EShare to carry out a detailed investigation of its administration system. The scheme currently uses Edis Partnerships for its administration needs. Although Edis's contract is not due to expire for...

News: Terminally ill to be first in line for FAS payments.
June 27, 2005... Terminally ill people who have lost their pensions will be among the first to receive payouts from the government following draft regulations last week. Early payments from the Financial Assistance Scheme (FAS), will be made to the...

News: Don't delay pensions reform, warns Rifkind.
June 27, 2005... Reform of the pensions system cannot wait until the next parliament, shadow work and pensions minister Malcolm Rifkind warned. Rifkind's comments came last week at the Pensions Commission's seminar with political parties and key industry...

News: Letters - We need an RIA for the CP legislation.(Letter to the Editor)
June 27, 2005... Any new UK legislation has to be accompanied by a published regulatory impact assessment (RIA). For example, there is one to justify the government's claim that the annual cost of the PPF [Pension Protection Fund] will be GBP300m. Could...

News: Letters - Say no to box-ticking approach to trustee awareness.(Letter to the Editor)
June 27, 2005... Penny Green raises an interesting issue in her article about trustee knowledge and understanding (PW 6.6.05). While we are all agreed that this is required, does passing exams really demonstrate knowledge and understanding and, if so, for...

News: Don't miss future editions of the Trustee Masterclass.
June 27, 2005... Have you been keeping up to date with the Trustee Masterclass series produced as a joint initiative between PW and Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (MLIM)? The Trustee Masterclass aims to help UK pension fund trustees with the increasing...

News: Banks balk at lending for overseas Sipps properties.
June 27, 2005... UK banks are unlikely to lend to individuals wanting to put overseas properties in self-invested personal pensions (Sipps) post A-day. Butterfield Private Bank warned that putting overseas property into a Sipp post A-day will be a...

News: Ellison: Treasury needs to rethink its views on pensions.
June 27, 2005... The Treasury should view pensions as a deferred salary and not a cash or savings pot, the National Association of Pension Funds chairman Robin Ellison claimed last week. Ellison said more needs to be done to help achieve the second half of...

News: Trustee - It's a bumpy road ahead.
June 27, 2005... It is now some three months since significant parts of the Pensions Act 2004 came into effect on 6 April. That is a full cycle of trustee meetings, so how are we getting on? Many trustee boards have started to draw up 'to do' lists to...

News: IPPM creates chief exec role.
June 27, 2005... The Institute of Payroll and Pensions Management (IPPM) has created a chief executive position to help the company expand, raise its profile, and increase membership. The IPPM has not yet appointed a chief executive officer, but it is...

News: Low take-up leaves advantage of employer contributions untapped.
June 27, 2005... British workers who have not joined their employer's occupational pension scheme are missing out on almost GBP2.3bn a year in employer contributions. A report by Axa found that the figure could even be as high as GBP5.6bn, as a large...

News: Ombudsman watch.
June 27, 2005... Oracle Watch The sun was shining. The sky was bright blue and filled with the sound of early morning birdsong as I walked across the Heath to Hampstead station. All was well with the world. As I entered the lift to the deepest underground...

News: Hermes joins EAI in bid to improve quality of investment material research.
June 27, 2005... One of UK's largest fund managers, Hermes Pensions Management, has joined the Enhanced Analytics Initiative (EAI) to help promote better research of investment material. Following the move, Hermes will allocate a minimum of 5% of its...

News: Get the ball rolling now on transfers.
June 27, 2005... Advisers and their clients need to act now if they are to transfer their pension plans and protect tax-free cash in time for A-day, life company Skandia warned. Skandia said advisers looking to transfer clients out of occupational pension...

News: More women than men face poverty in retirement.
June 27, 2005... The majority of women in the UK do not believe they have saved enough for retirement, according to the latest research from Friends Provident. Ninety-four per cent of women thought they had not saved enough compared with 83% of men....

News: Axa creates IFA A-day calculator.
June 27, 2005... Axa has introduced an A-day calculator to provide independent financial advisors (IFAs) with information and support. Commenting on the website tool, Tim Rees, senior technical sales manager at Axa, said: "A-day can work in mysterious ways...

News: Events.
June 27, 2005... LCP BREAKFAST BRIEFINGS Consultant Lane Clark & Peacock (LCP) is hosting two free breakfast briefings to prepare companies for the changes to pension regulation taking place this year and to explain the implications of new share plan...

News: Gov't urged to take action to reduce poverty for women.
June 27, 2005... Millions of women are still facing poverty in old age unless the government steps up on action, Age Concern warned last week. One in five single women pensioners live in poverty and just 16% of women qualify for a full basic state pension...

News: Flex more beneficial to high net worth earners.
June 27, 2005... Executives and the highly paid are the most likely to profit from flexible benefits permitted under simplification legislation, pension service providers warned. Jeremy Ward, head of pensions marketing at Friends Provident, argued that...

News: NAPF notice board.
June 27, 2005... NAPF trustee conference 2005 in association with the Financial Times 28 September, Royal College of Surgeons, London The provisions of the Pensions Act 2004 are now in place and the new regulatory regime is upon us, with new tax...

Governance Update: Splitting the roles of chairman and CEO.
June 27, 2005... There is a broad consensus, reflected in the combined code that the roles of chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) should not be combined in the same individual. The principle behind separating the roles is to establish a division of...

Spotlight: The complications of simplification.
June 27, 2005... Schedule 10 of the Finance Act 2005, containing the latest round of changes to the pension tax simplification provisions of the Finance Act 2004, demonstrates that below the surface, the post-A-day pensions tax regime is very complex indeed....

Special focus: Liability-driven Investment - Contents.
June 27, 2005... The logic of matching assets with liabilities is not lost on UK pension fund trustees, and a flurry of asset liability studies has seen schemes change their investment strategies to reflect this understanding. Liability-driven investment...

Special focus: Liability-driven Investment - The time is right for liability-driven investment.
June 27, 2005... Kevin Carter, head of European investment practice at Watson Wyatt says, "Liability-driven investment [LDI] is an idea whose time has come". "There has been growing acceptance that equity benchmarks are not a good proxy for liabilities....

Special focus: Liability-driven Investment - A changing climate: assets vs liabilities.
June 27, 2005... The world of occupational pensions has changed. Just 25 years ago, the level of guaranteed benefits was relatively low, with plan members depending on discretionary increases granted by their scheme trustees. But we have seen layer upon layer...

Special focus: Liability-driven Investment - Company Profile - Barclays Global Investors.
June 27, 2005... Background Established more than 30 years ago, Barclays Global Investors (BGI) is today one of the world's largest fund managers. BGI, a subsidiary of Barclays plc, has a significant international presence, with 10 offices worldwide and a...

Opinion: Leader - Finding a prudent funding level.
June 27, 2005... Prudence is a key issue that pension schemes and their advisers will have to grapple with in conforming to the new funding rules. We all know what prudence looks like in everyday life, but as many have pointed out, the new regulations do...

Opinion: Personal view - Protecting the pension promise.
June 27, 2005... Help, it seems, is on its way with the Pension Protection Fund (PPF), brought into effect 6 April 2005, as part of the much anticipated Pensions Act 2004. Designed as a compensation scheme to protect pensioners, the PPF will pay out to members...

Opinion: Inside view - The end of an era of age discrimination.
June 27, 2005... In October 2006, new laws will be introduced outlawing age discrimination in employment and training. This follows on from a European directive adopted back in 2000. These new laws will cover both direct and indirect discrimination, and they...

Roundtable: Simplification - Intro.(Panel Discussion)
June 27, 2005... Time is running out for pension schemes still getting their house in order ahead of A-day. On 6 April, the Finance Act 2005 finally comes into force after numerous delays, adjustments and reforms, meaning pension schemes must have the...

Roundtable: Simplification - Profiles.(Panel Discussion)
June 27, 2005... Clive Gilchrist, managing director, Bestrustees Clive Gilchrist is an independent trustee and managing director of Bestrustees, a company he founded in 1992. He has over 30 years' pensions and investment experience including 10 years at...

Roundtable: Simplification - Simplification: compliance requires comprehension.
June 27, 2005... Gill Wadsworth, executive editor, Pensions Week: What are the main challenges the industry is facing when getting ready for A-day and simplification? Morag Williams, consultant, Dunnett Shaw: One challenge which seems to be common is...

People on the move: Stanley to head UK smaller companies team at F&C.
June 27, 2005... F&C Asset Management has appointed Catherine Stanley as head of UK smaller companies. Stanley will succeed Sandy Fleming, who is retiring from F&C at the end of July after nearly 12 years with the company. Stanley will work with the...

People on the move: BGI opts for Bhagat as global chief exec.
June 27, 2005... Barclays Global Investors (BGI) has appointed Rohit Bhagat as global chief operating officer. Bhagat will have oversight responsibility for the technology, operations, finance, strategic planning, human resources, legal, compliance and...

People on the move: Tan joins Insight's fixed income team.
June 27, 2005... Insight Investment has appointed Stewart Tan as a fund manager within its fixed income team. Tan will be responsible for managing an absolute return bond fund and will report to the head of fixed income, Adrian Grey. Tan most recently...

People on the move: MLIM opts for Quinn as director of its global consultants group.
June 27, 2005... Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (MLIM) has appointed Timothy Quinn as a director of its global consultants group. In his role at MLIM, Quinn will focus on developing and maintaining relationships with investment consultants across...

People on the move: Barker to head credit analysis team at Morley.
June 27, 2005... Morley Fund Management has appointed Tim Barker as head of credit analysis. Barker joins Morley on 1 August 2005, and will report to Paul Mingay, head of credit in the fixed income team. Barker has over 13 years' experience in credit...

News Just In... FAS pay-outs to begin by year's end.
June 27, 2005... Payments from the government lifeboat for wind-up victims will begin by the end of the year. Stephen Timms, pensions minister, has bowed to pressure from ministers and action groups and pushed forward the expected date for the Financial...