Pensions Week articles from November 2004

Pensions Week archives from November 2004

News: Invesco in talks over possible sale of DC arm.
November 1, 2004... Fund manager Invesco Perpetual is in talks with several businesses over the possible sale of Invesco Pensions, its defined contribution (DC) business. The talks form part of a review of options by Invesco for its bundled DC service. ...

News: SEI's Knight joins Horlick's multi-manager boutique.
November 1, 2004... Nicola Horlick, one of the City's most high profile female fund managers, has poached SEI Investments' Pippa Knight to join her multi-manager boutique. Knight has left her role as SEI's sales director to take on a similar role with...

News: Future uncertain for pension schemes.
November 1, 2004... Pension schemes face a barrage of uncertainty for the future as longevity risk jumps up the order of concerns facing company pensions, according to an actuarial report. The report by insurance company Prudential is a warning shot to the...

News: Pensions bill amendments leave turnaround companies exposed.
November 1, 2004... Pension lawyers are picking holes in the government's amendments to moral hazard clauses in the pensions bill, published last week. The Department for Work and Pensions announced 145 amendments to the bill that has faced wide-ranging...

News: Assistance scheme faces further delays.
November 1, 2004... The waiting game continues for members of wound-up pension schemes holding out for money from the illusive Financial Assistance Scheme (FAS) as the government pushes back the date for any decision. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)...

News: SEI adds three more MoM mandates to its portfolio.
November 1, 2004... Fund manager SEI Investments has bagged three mandates from major UK pension funds. Materials engineering group Morgan Crucible Company selected SEI Europe to run a GBP35m global equity mandate, chemical manufacturer Tennants Consolidated...

News: Financial burden of pensions worrying for many SMEs.
November 1, 2004... More than half (56%) of the country's small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are concerned about the financial burden that on-going employee pension provision places on their business, according to research from Axa. Of the 200 SMEs...

News: Simplification will increase workload.
November 1, 2004... Pensions simplification is set to cause major upheaval in the pensions industry and make business more complicated, according to a survey. Research by pensions software company, Dunstan Thomas, showed that pensions administrators,...

News: Government will not get away with ignoring pensions crisis, warns NAPF.
November 1, 2004... The government will not get away with ignoring the pensions crisis in the run-up to the general election, the National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) warned. Terry Faulkner, NAPF chairman, said that the Labour government would have to...

News: Mellon kicks off DC Investment Plus.
November 1, 2004... Mellon Global Investments has launched a defined contribution (DC) service - known as DC Investment Plus. It combines the investment capabilities of Mellon's specialist independent asset managers, including those of Newton, with a member...

News: Schoeller may face legal action over UK scheme.
November 1, 2004... Legal action is looming over German printing firm, Felix Schoeller, as charges of alleged misconduct are levelled at the company by UK ex-workers whose pension provision has dried up. Frustration has reached fever pitch for the ex-workers...

News: JLT launches new consulting service.
November 1, 2004... Jardine Lloyd Thompson (JLT) has launched a 'pay for what you need' defined benefit (DB) consulting service, called Optimum. Optimum will offer the core consulting elements such as administration, consulting, actuarial and investment at a...

News: Letters - Unions and employers should unite to ensure better retirement provision.
November 1, 2004... Sir, Your spotlight feature on the Turner report (PW 25.10.04) showed that far from being able to work together for the good of the workforce, the unions and employers only wish to blame each other for the problems. The Unison reaction...

News: Letters - Appalled by high actuary fees.
November 1, 2004... Sir, I was appalled by the level of fees you reported were being charged by actuaries to complete the basic scheme information form that is required to register interest in receiving support from the government's financial assistance...

News: Schroders' move to specialist management boosts profits.
November 1, 2004... Schroder Investment Management has lost GBP70bn in balanced mandates in the past five years but has managed to improve profitability through specialist management fees. Despite only picking up GBP57bn in specialist mandates - meaning a...

News: BAM sees good prospects for Japanese market.
November 1, 2004... Baring Asset Management (BAM) slammed market sentiment that Japan has disappointed again. The fund manager said that although economic activity has slowed down over the summer months in Japan, the longer-term prospects for the country look...

News: Manufacturers not tackling pensions crisis.
November 1, 2004... A large number of manufacturing companies in the UK are doing little or nothing to tackle the pensions crisis, research by RSM Robson Rhodes found. Statistics indicated that a high proportion of companies have not changed pension advisers...

News: NAPF calls for cautious investment of PPF fund.
November 1, 2004... The government needs to adopt a radical new investment policy to ensure the success of the Pension Protection Fund (PPF), consultants warned last week. The comments followed concerns from the National Association of Pension Funds' (NAPF)...

News: Lack of interest in enhanced annuities.
November 1, 2004... Enhanced annuities are being shunned by a large proportion of eligible people because independent financial advisers (IFAs) believe they are difficult to process. A survey, commissioned by GE Life, estimated that only a quarter of the 40%...

News: Sting in the tale - Public or private?
November 1, 2004... Looking through the detail contained within the Pensions Commission's report, I notice that the value of the unfunded liabilities for public sector employee pension rights amounts to around GBP500bn. This is a significant amount, given that the...

News: Dearden selected as chairman of BMA committee.
November 1, 2004... The British Medical Association's (BMA's) pensions committee, which represents all doctors, has selected Andrew Dearden as its new chairman. His appointment comes in the midst of the major NHS Pension Scheme review and the government's...

News: IBM pension scheme members in uproar over ombudsman's decision.
November 1, 2004... The pensions ombudsman, David Laverick, has not upheld any of the complaints made by members of the IBM UK pensions scheme over various issues. After four years of gestation, Laverick finally delivered his determination on the IBM affair. ...

News: Ombudsman watch.
November 1, 2004... Nostrae culpae This column believes in turning the arcane (pensions law) into the simple (some would say simplistic). The actuaries may be heading along a parallel path. Last week a paper by actuaries at Mercer and Hewitt (but note, not...

News: BAM claims linkers key part of protecting real portfolio value.
November 1, 2004... The top 50 UK schemes invest in index-linked bonds rather than conventional bonds, according to fund manager Baring Asset Management (BAM). The fund manager said there is a trend among pension funds to invest in the asset class, which will...

News: Brewin to provide investment services to Standard Life Sipp.
November 1, 2004... Standard Life has selected Brewin Dolphin Securities, the independent portfolio manager and stockbroker, to provide discretionary investment services for its self-invested personal pension (Sipp), which will be launched on 6 December this year....

News: Stoxx launches Dow Jones EU Enlarged indexes.
November 1, 2004... Stoxx has launched the Dow Jones Stoxx EU Enlarged indexes, which will measure the performance of the 10 countries that became member states of the European Union in May this year. The index series consists of the Dow Jones Stoxx EU...

News: API's institutional investor property fund to invest in commercial property market.
November 1, 2004... Arlington Property Investors (API), the property investment management firm, has launched a property fund, aimed at institutional investors. The Arlington UK Balanced Property Fund, which is also geared toward high- net-worth individuals,...

Governance watch: Fair value estimates of equity-based awards needed.
November 1, 2004... Analysis recently carried out by Manifest found that interest in analysing equity-based remuneration has been motivated by two fields of research operating independently of each other. On one side, academics have been interested in the extent...

Spotlight: SMEs: the small fish in the big pensions pond.
November 1, 2004... Bigger is usually thought of as better. The key players in most markets are seen as the biggest names with the largest budgets. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can often find themselves facing tough competition and little...

Opinion: Leader - Complications on the road to simplification.
November 1, 2004... One interesting section in the report of the Pensions Commission looks at the insights to be gained from behavioural economics. This is a branch of economics that looks at how people take decisions in real life, away from the classroom...

Opinion: Personal view - The absolute return strategy.
November 1, 2004... Herding instincts are once again at play in the pension fund industry. Many funds, still disillusioned by the sharp losses equity markets endured between 2000 and 2003 and concerned that the bear market may be undergoing a temporary hiatus, are...

Opinion: Inside view - Recognising currency as a source of uncorrelated alpha.
November 1, 2004... The traditional approach to currency management is changing. While the broader investment community has accepted the management of currency exposure separately from other underlying assets, pension funds are increasingly using currency as an...

Special Focus: Defined Contribution - Intro.
November 1, 2004... The future of UK pension provision lies in defined contribution (DC) and more companies than ever before offer a money purchase plan to employees. With the growth in DC provision comes improved products with more fund choice and...

Special Focus: Defined Contribution - Weighing the pros and cons of contract and employer schemes.
November 1, 2004... According to a recent survey from Watson Wyatt, 80% of FTSE 100 companies now sponsor a defined contribution (DC) pension scheme. About half are employer schemes with a full trustee structure in place, the rest are arranged on a contract basis....

Special Focus: Defined Contribution - Choosing the multi-manager approach.
November 1, 2004... Although not widely used at present, there is a strong argument that multi- manager is a good investment style for defined contribution (DC) schemes. The main benefits of a multi-manager approach - access to specialist managers and...

Special Focus: Defined Contribution - Making the right pension choice.
November 1, 2004... You have done the difficult bit and persuaded some employees to part with a little of their hard-earned wages and contribute to the new workplace pension plan. Perhaps, if you are an employer, you had to tempt them with a matching contribution,...

Special Focus: Defined Contribution - Company Profile - The Legal & General Group.
November 1, 2004... Background The Legal & General Group, established in 1836, is one of the UK's leading financial services companies. We are one of the UK's top 50 FTSE quoted companies. Over 5.2 million people rely on us for life assurance, pensions,...

Special Focus: Defined Contribution - Company Profile - Threadneedle Asset Management.
November 1, 2004... Company Background Threadneedle Asset Management is a leading UK-based full service investment house. Founded in 1994, Threadneedle manages approximately GBP59bn* for a wide range of clients, including defined benefit (DB), defined...

People on the Move: BAM appoints Cripwell as senior investor.
November 1, 2004... Baring Asset Management (BAM) has appointed Crispin Cripwell as a senior investor in the multi-asset team. Cripwell will be responsible for the BAM global growth trust with Chris Lees as co-manager. Cripwell joins on 8 November and will...

People on the Move: Charles Russell appoints Lee, Sargant to its pensions practice.
November 1, 2004... City law firm Charles Russell has appointed two solicitors, Rosamund Lee and Henrietta Sargant, to boost its pensions practice. Lee joins from financial services group Friends Provident, where she had worked since 2000. Prior to this, Lee...

People on the Move: Bryson to head financial services team at Brewin.
November 1, 2004... Brewin Dolphin Securities, an independent portfolio manager and stockbroker, has appointed Sandy Bryson as head of financial services for the group. In this role, Bryson will lead a team of over 25 independent financial advisers from...

People on the Move: Investec appoints Patel as credit portfolio manager.
November 1, 2004... Investec Asset Management has appointed Harsha Patel as a credit portfolio manager to its fixed income team in London. Patel will be part of the pan-European credit team and will work alongside Peter Burbank, head of credit research. ...

News Just In... : Aon signs oe10m deal to use Acquila's Administrator system for its TPA service.
November 1, 2004... Aon Consulting has signed a GBP10m pound deal to use Acquila's Administrator system for its third-party pensions administration (TPA) service. Aon has 520 pension scheme clients for TPA work and currently uses Profund's Classic system, but...

News Just In... : Civil partnership bill amended to include same-sex couples.
November 1, 2004... Same-sex couples are to gain pension benefits in contracted-out schemes, following an amendment to the civil partnership bill. In addition, civil partners will have the right to pass on survivor pensions as married people do. The bill...

News: Ombudsman inquiry into pension theft imminent.
November 15, 2004... The parliamentary ombudsman (PO) is expected to announce an official inquiry into the loss of 65,000 individuals' pension benefits at underfunded defined benefit (DB) schemes within the next few days. The inquiry is in response to over 200...

News: Avon changes fund managers.
November 15, 2004... The GBP111m Avon Cosmetics pension fund has dropped fund managers Legal & General Investment Management and Deutsche Asset Management following an investment review. The scheme has appointed Gartmore to manage a GBP14m corporate bond...

News: Invesco sale prompts loss of DC director.
November 15, 2004... Invesco Perpetual has lost a senior figure in its defined contribution (DC) pension business in the wake of its possible sale. Terry O'Malley, Invesco's sales and client services director for its DC operation, has departed the firm...

News: Cable & Wireless boosts pension fund by oe100m while axing staff.
November 15, 2004... Telecoms giant, Cable & Wireless (C&W), has announced that it will boost its final salary pension fund by GBP100m to help with its shortfall. FRS 17 figures revealed that the scheme was experiencing a deficit of around GBP350m in March this...

News: LGIM caters for UK pension fund market with pooled bond funds.
November 15, 2004... Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM) has launched three pooled corporate bond funds to cater for the UK pension fund market. The funds are based on LGIM's most popular aggregate strategies and will be run on an active basis. ...

News: Greenwich: DC plans are the future of UK pension funds.
November 15, 2004... Nearly half of UK occupational pensions schemes are closed to new employees and only one-quarter of schemes have solvency rates above 85%, a US study has found. Greenwich Associates, a US-based research consultancy, revealed that 47% of...

News: Mellon says Pensions Act 2004 not all bad.
November 15, 2004... Mellon Financial Corporation's Human Resources & Investor Solutions (HR&IS) urged companies with occupational schemes not to consider the forthcoming Pensions Act 2004 as the final straw to closing pension schemes. HR&IS acknowledged that...

News: Lewisham ditches DeAM, Schroders in switch to specialist managers.
November 15, 2004... The GBP500m London Borough of Lewisham pension fund has ditched its balanced managers Deutsche Asset Management (DeAM) and Schroders Investment Management as part of a move to a specialist investment strategy. The fund has snapped up...

News: Hermes fund-of-hedge-fund nabs BT's oe540m.
November 15, 2004... Hermes Pensions Management has launched an offshore fund-of-hedge-funds, soaking up GBP540m that BT pension scheme has allocated to hedge funds. The Hermes Absolute Return Fund (HARF) was launched this month and is listed in Dublin and...

News: FSA issues soft commissions supplementary policy statement.
November 15, 2004... The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has issued a supplementary policy statement to help with issues related to soft commissions. The regulator said this would assist the three industry bodies - the Investment Management Association,...

News: Life to manage portfolio for Pensions Trust.
November 15, 2004... The Pensions Trust has appointed Standard Life Investments to manage its GBP75m segregated sterling corporate bond portfolio. The appointment followed a comprehensive evaluation process involving a number of investment houses. Craig...

News: ABI reappoints Lipper to monitor investment classifications.
November 15, 2004... The Association of British Insurers (ABI) has reappointed Lipper to monitor investment classifications for pension and life funds. From 1 January 2005, Lipper's new brief will extend to collecting full holdings and allocation data for all...

News: Aon appointed to provide investment advice for ITN.
November 15, 2004... The Independent Television News (ITN) pension scheme has appointed Aon to provide investment consultancy advice. Aon replaced Watson Wyatt Worldwide. Two other major consultancies were also shortlisted. Aon will provide advice to the...

News: Maximisation of pre-A day contributions may not be wise.
November 15, 2004... Individuals with substantial savings in their pension fund should make plans now, ahead of the implementation of the GBP1.5m lifetime allowance (LTA) on 6 April 2006, consultant Watson Wyatt warned. Clive Newman, senior consultant at Watson...

News: Investment professionals' staff turnover reaches record 45%.
November 15, 2004... Staff turnover among investment professionals managing UK active equities has reached a staggering 45%. Research by multi-manager Investment Solutions found 45% of investment professionals have changed jobs in the last three years. Of...

Letters: Paying too little in state pensions.
November 15, 2004... Sir, Some figures that Steve Bee quoted in his column (PW 1.11.04) became somewhat mangled in the printing [see above right] but I understood the points he made. It also seemed to him that we either pay too little in state pensions or...

Letters: Passing pensions liability via council tax is criminal.
November 15, 2004... Sir, It is of interest that the front page of PW details that the North Somerset council has a pension deficit (PW 1.11.04). Whilst I appreciate that the employees and employers have a concern for the future pension funding, the employer,...

News: Hartford to break into UK fixed income market.
November 15, 2004... A large US fund manager is attempting to break into the UK fixed income market, which it believes will offer the firm prominent opportunities. Hartford Investment Management has already held meetings with two of the top four UK...

News: Webline to offer online annuity comparison service.
November 15, 2004... Webline, an online quotation and electronic trading service for independent financial advisers (IFAs), is to offer an online annuity comparison service from next January. At present, Webline is working with five annuity providers - Friends...

News: IBM guarantees DB scheme increase.
November 15, 2004... Computer company IBM has guaranteed to contribute GBP181m for the next three years to its defined benefit (DB) pension scheme in a bid to close the GBP900m funding gap in its pension scheme. IBM has reached an agreement in principle with...

News: Liberata to manage 200,000 life policies for Chesnara in 2005.
November 15, 2004... Process outsourcing provider Liberata is to run Chesnara's book of over 200,000 life policies from January 2005. The partnership followed an extensive due diligence period and will see the transfer of 180 Chesnara employees to Liberata Business...

News: GE Life extends annuity quote rate period.
November 15, 2004... Annuitants could lose money as a result of new legislation, a retirement specialist at GE Life has warned. In response to the Distance Marketing Directive, which came into force on 9 October this year, GE Life has extended its annuity quote...

News: Benchmark - Being on the demand side.
November 15, 2004... All of the recent work on strategic asset allocation seems to be driven from the demand side. The analysis starts with the liabilities, often analyses the cashflow pattern they exhibit, and drives through to determine an optimal mix of asset...

News: MP urges ombudsman to finalise Equitable Life investigation.
November 15, 2004... Conservative shadow financial secretary, Andrew Tyrie, has urged the parliamentary ombudsman, Ann Abraham, to give an indication on when her enquiry on Equitable Life will be completed. In a letter to Abraham, the MP asked her to finalise...

News: Proposed changes to PPF eligibility puts pensions minister under fire.
November 15, 2004... Government changes to the fledgling Pension Protection Fund (PPF) could open the floodgates for scheme applications with potentially disastrous implications for the fund before its inception, industry experts warned last week. Pensions...

News: Ombudsman watch.
November 15, 2004... Pension passion The BBC ran a piece last week about a professor from Henley Management College who said the British industry is wasting GBP7.8bn a year on business meetings - run by "legions of monotone, fumbling, power-point die-hards"....

News: European property investments supersede equities markets.
November 15, 2004... Property performance in Europe is likely to outstrip equities and fixed asset markets over the long term and should not be shunned by UK and European pension funds. Fund manager Scottish Widows Investment Partnership (Swip) predicted an...

News: State retirement age increase expected by 69% of population.
November 15, 2004... The majority of Britons believe that the government will increase the state retirement age in a few years time. Research by Axa found that a whopping 32 million adults (69%) believed that the government will only allow access to the state...

News: HR & Reward service offered by AWD.
November 15, 2004... AWD Consulting, formerly Thomson's Benefit Consulting, has launched a service offering employers strategic, technical and practical advice on reward and HR. The new division - HR & Reward Consulting - will be headed up by newly appointed...

News: Events.
November 15, 2004... NAPF TO HOLD SEMINAR ON PENSIONS ACT The National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) is holding a seminar on the pensions bill and its implications for trustees and sponsors. The seminar takes place on 24 November in London. ...

Governance watch: European Commission's recommendations get mixed reviews.
November 15, 2004... The European Commission, as part of its corporate governance action plan launched last year, has recently issued two new recommendations concerning the role of non-executive directors and an appropriate regime for the remuneration of directors....

Spotlight: Adopting a risk-based management system.
November 15, 2004... The government stopped short of putting a requirement for defined benefit pension plans to have 50% member-nominated trustees (MNTs) in the pensions bill. However, by including the power to do so, 50% MNTs will soon be granted by a mere flick...

Opinion: Leader - Seeing through Whitehall's pensions facade.
November 15, 2004... Given the way the government has handled the disaster of lost benefits at underfunded pension schemes, it is hardly surprising that the public has such a low opinion of politicians. Initially, the government said repeatedly that while it...

Opinion: Personal view - Managing risk the trustee way.
November 15, 2004... While many trustees are veterans when it comes to dealing with claims of sex discrimination, they may have viewed the recent narrowing of the justification defence in claims of disability discrimination with a certain weariness. Add to this the...

Opinion: Inside view - Traditional stock selection to make a comeback.
November 15, 2004... Privatisation in the 1980s, supported by mass advertising campaigns, embedded investing in equities into the British psyche. Compounded by the 1990s bull market, retail and institutional investors developed an almost unsurpassed confidence in...

Special Focus: Specialist Investment Management - Intro.
November 15, 2004... Fund management houses whose names were synonymous with balanced management are now reinventing themselves as specialist managers. The scope for new business in the specialist arena far outweighs that of traditional balanced management, and...

Special Focus: Specialist Investment Management - The move from balanced to specialist management.
November 15, 2004... Rapid growth in the use of scheme-specific benchmarks in the late 1990s has given a major fillip to specialist investment management. Throughout the 1990s, a raft of factors triggered the shift from balanced management with peer group...

Special Focus: Specialist Investment Management - Rethinking investment strategy to find the best opportunities.
November 15, 2004... Equities are the natural asset to meet pension funds' long-term liabilities. But an allocation to equities alone isn't enough: trustees should consider managers who make equities work harder. In the next 20 years, broad markets will not...

Special Focus: Specialist Investment Management - Company Profile - Schroders.
November 15, 2004... Background Schroders is a leading global asset manager with a history of 200 years in financial markets, and over GBP100bn* under management. Schroders began managing assets in 1922 and UK pension schemes in 1947, and continues to look...

People on the Move: Henderson appoints Robins, Dieppe to its SRI team.
November 15, 2004... Henderson Global Investors has appointed Nick Robins and Tim Dieppe to its sustainable and responsible investment (SRI) team. Dieppe joins the team as manager of the global care growth fund, Henderson ethical fund and horizon global...