Pensions Week articles from September 2006

Pensions Week archives from September 2006

News: Turner: state system like pyramid scheme.
September 4, 2006... Byline: Hannah Williams The UK state pension system has been branded a pyramid selling scheme by Adair Turner, likening it to the fraudulent 'Ponzi' system of the 1920s. Ponzi schemes were intended to defraud investors where no new...

News: PPI research throws into doubt government's NPSS stance.
September 4, 2006... Byline: Kevin Wesbroom The government's infatuation with minimal management charges for the National Pension Savings Scheme (NPSS) has been thrown into doubt by Pensions Policy Institute (PPI) research. The government maintains...

News: Regulator's online toolkit is a block to progress say trustees.
September 4, 2006... Byline: Hannah Williams The Pensions Regulator's Trustee Toolkit is outdated and stands in the way of progress, according to trustees. The online education service provided by the regulator is designed to improve trustees' knowledge...

News: Pressure mounts for more ethical investing.
September 4, 2006... Pressure is mounting on pension providers to make ethical considerations when investing, as research showed one in six people value moral concerns as much as financial ones. The report carried out by Friends Provident also found ethical...

News: Fund-of-hedge funds fare badly.
September 4, 2006... Byline: Ryan Harrison The Close and Man investment houses suffered a major blow to their joint fund-of-hedge funds business, which sank to the bottom of rankings for the last 12 months. The Close Man guaranteed hedge fund II, launched...

News: PwC attacks automatic transfer value.
September 4, 2006... PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has called on the government to scrap automatic pension transfer values. PwC's submission to the Department for Work & Pensions urged an end to the automatic right of scheme members to transfer the value of...

News: Chief executive of Morley moves on.
September 4, 2006... The head of Morley Fund Management has resigned, citing a desire to embark on new challenges. Keith Jones has been the company's chief executive for the last seven years, joining from Norwich Union Investment Management when the company...

News: Pension deficits shoot up by GBP10bn.
September 4, 2006... UK pension deficits rocketed by GBP10bn last month, research revealed. According to the analysis by Aon Consulting, the increase is largely due to a small decrease in bond yields, with corporate bond yields falling from 5.1% to 5% and gilt...

News: Letters.
September 4, 2006... NO TO GOVERNMENT COMPENSATION It is not often I find myself agreeing with an actuary. It is even less often that I find myself supporting the government. However, I think Stephen Yeo (PW 21.8.06) hit the nail on the head. It is not for the...

News: TUC attacks sabotage of NPSS.
September 4, 2006... Byline: Daniel McAllister Employers and trade unions are at loggerheads over plans for a National Pension Savings Scheme (NPSS) which could see new employees waiting a year to get employer contributions into the fund. The Trades Union...

News: Government scraps scheme proposals.
September 4, 2006... The government has shelved a raft of regulation set to come in this autumn to simplify workplace pensions for employers. More than 30 draft regulations on scheme disclosure of information, which had already gone through industry...

News: Watson Wyatt takes electricity role from Mercer.
September 4, 2006... Watson Wyatt Investment Consultants has replaced Mercer Investment Consulting as adviser to the Northern Electric Group Pension Scheme. The electricity distributor appointed Watson Wyatt following a review of advisers, though it would not...

News: Midas Capital goes live with Cofunds.
September 4, 2006... Two funds from Midas Capital Partners are available for investment through Cofunds independent fundmarket. The CF Midas balanced growth fund and the CF Midas balanced income fund can be accessed through Cofunds from this month as part of a...

News: JPMorgan revises carrymax product.
September 4, 2006... JPMorgan has launched a revised investment strategy targeting institutional and high net worth investors. The updated carrymax product is built on the original carry trade strategy, where an investor buys high-yielding assets to generate a...

News: Sting in the tale - Nothing's changed.
September 4, 2006... Byline: Steve Bee It was very difficult pre A-day to give advice on pensions, because the system was just so complicated. But it seems to be even worse in the new post A-day simplified system, where everything is subject to chopping...

News: Predicted rise in demand for independent trustees.
September 4, 2006... Byline: Ryan Harrison The demand for independent trustees is set to rocket this month from pension schemes thirsty for unbiased decisions in their upcoming actuarial evaluations, consultants said. From September, as part of the...

News: Year's first half sees UK equity sector fund managers underperforming.
September 4, 2006... The majority of UK equity fund managers failed to deliver in the first half of 2006, according to F&C Asset Management. The fund manager's multi-manager research found outperformance from just 66 funds out of 335 in the UK all companies...

News: Age laws to bring about cuts and confusion.
September 4, 2006... Byline: Daniel McAllister Looming age discrimination laws will lead to a spate of litigation and cuts to pension benefits as confusion reigns over the interpretation of the legislation, consultants and lawyers warned. Claire Southern,...

News: Northern Trust shores up UCITS III cash offering.
September 4, 2006... Northern Trust Global Investments (NTGI) has enhanced the status of its global cash funds in a bid to attract more oversees investors. NTGI improved its Dublin domiciled global cash funds up to the latest standard of the undertaking for...

News: LDI provision barrier.
September 4, 2006... Byline: Daniel McAllister Fund managers face a "huge barrier" to providing liability-driven investment (LDI) products which is too tough an obstacle for most of the industry, consultants warned. Research by Investit Intelligence...

News: Financial futures are online.
September 4, 2006... An online education service has been set up to help pension scheme members and employers gain control of their financial futures. In conjunction with financial education charity, the Life Academy, Friends Provident is offering scheme...

Governance Watch: Stronger consideration of candidates required.
September 4, 2006... Warner Estates will hold its annual general meeting on September 7, 2006. The company states in the annual report: "Whilst the board subscribes to the principles of best practice set out in the combined code, the age and size of the company and...

News: NAPF Notice Board.
September 4, 2006... It's a DC world Over the last few years many employers have retreated from defined benefit (DB) pension provision and this, together with government plans to introduce auto-enrolment, means the number of people saving in defined...

Ombudsman Watch.
September 4, 2006... Complaint After my last column I was politely taken to task by an RR. An RR, for irregular readers who missed that column, is a regular reader. The RR complainant alleged I had strayed off this column's beaten path by: - venturing...

Campaign for Pensions Justice: Reporting the reality behind the headlines.
September 4, 2006... Name & scheme witheld " Up to June 27, 2003 I worked at Coalite Chemicals, Bolsover, Derbyshire. Since joining the company in 1970, I had been a member of the final salary pension scheme. There was a takeover bid in the 1990s, when the...

NAPF News: Advertorial - Facing the DC challenge.
September 4, 2006... In 2004/05, 67% of pensioner households received an income from occupational or personal pensions, up from 59% 10 years earlier. As the number of people benefiting from private pensions rose, so too did the amounts they received. By 2004/05,...

Opinion: Leader - What do people give but never take?
September 4, 2006... Byline: Gill Wadsworth You may recall some weeks ago I wrote about property and mentioned I was in the process of selling my house. I am still in the process of selling my house and judging by its progress so far, could remain in this...

Opinion: Personal View.
September 4, 2006... Byline: Simon Tyler The Law Commission has finally published its long-awaited report on trustee exemption clauses. But what has been the impact on pension schemes? Absolutely none. And is this a good thing? Certainly. It all started...

Opinion: Inside View - Dispelling the media myths and magic of hedge funds.
September 4, 2006... Byline: Francois Barthelemy Hedge funds have enjoyed so much media exposure that one would be forgiven for believing there are no mysteries left. Wishful thinking. As a hedge fund picker, I am often struck by the divergence between...

People on the Move: Resolution appoints duo to increase its capabilities.
September 4, 2006... Byline: Daniel McAllister Resolution Asset Management has recruited Gary Walker as head of its institutional sales team and Stuart Thomson as investment manager, international bonds & currencies. Walker, former director of European...

People on the Move: McNeill bolsters Aegon's fixed income team.
September 4, 2006... Aegon Asset Management has appointed John McNeill as head of international rates in its fixed income team. McNeill joins Aegon's fixed income team, headed by Stephen Jones and David Roberts, from Resolution Asset Management, where he was...

People on the Move: LCP responds to covenants and hires Sannino.
September 4, 2006... Lane Clark & Peacock (LCP) has appointed Ciro Sannino as an associate consultant in its credit team. Sannino has several years' experience in credit underwriting and risk analysis and will be reporting to David Poynton. Poynton, head...

People on the Move: Andress moves to Northern Trust to oversee global derivatives.
September 4, 2006... Northern Trust has hired Stephen Andress as global head of derivatives operations. Andress will manage and oversee the strategic development of its back office derivatives team. "Enhancing our derivatives processing capabilities...

People on the Move: Foster joins Hewitt Associates as a consultant to its DC scheme client base.
September 4, 2006... Hewitt Associates has appointed John Foster as a consultant to its defined contribution (DC) consulting team. Foster, who joins from Prudential, has over 20 years' experience advising public and private sector companies and trustees on...

News: JPMorgan stripped of top investment team.
September 11, 2006... Byline: Ryan Harrison JPMorgan suffered a major blow to its fund management operation as a five- strong top-level investment team jumped ship to a fledgling boutique asset manager. In a coup of world-class investment managers, MPC...

News: Regulator's study reveals DB scheme unreadiness.
September 11, 2006... The majority of defined benefit (DB) pension schemes are ill equipped to manage conflicts of interest, according to a study published by the Pensions Regulator. The survey into the way UK pension schemes were run found that while many...

News: Treasury sends confused messages over state pensions.
September 11, 2006... Byline: Hannah Williams Mixed signals from the Treasury over white paper proposals have left taxpayers in a quandary over state pension contributions. The Treasury warned people not to take white paper plans into account when making...

News: BBC fund changes rejected by unions.
September 11, 2006... Proposed changes to the BBC's pension fund were rejected by unions after ballot results saw members divided over the scheme's future. Union bodies BECTU, Amicus and the National Union of Journalists met this week to decide the way forward...

News: Pickering condemns auto-enrolment.
September 11, 2006... Byline: Daniel McAllister & Hannah Williams Alan Pickering has flown in the face of broad political and industry opinion by branding auto-enrolment in personal accounts "a monstrosity" that no sane politician would touch with a barge pole....

News: NAPF: guard against levelling down.
September 11, 2006... The introduction of personal accounts will only be effective if measures are taken to prevent employers levelling down, the National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) and the Association of British Insurers (ABI) have warned. While...

News: Pension providers feel the beneficial effects of A-day.
September 11, 2006... Pension providers are attributing a buoyant year for business to tax simplification and the government's pensions white paper. Sales of individual and group pensions hit record levels for two consecutive quarters this year, with new...

News: Second cities are first for investment.
September 11, 2006... UK pension schemes that invest in property markets in Europe's secondary cities could expect a 15% return on their money over three years. Property investment manager Arlington reported that European capital cities, including Paris and...

News: Letters.
September 11, 2006... NO COHESION TO GOVERNMENT POLICY The minister for pensions reform recently announced that the new pension scheme disclosure regulations will not now be brought into force due to forthcoming deregulation measures contained in the May 2006...

News: Boyne and Wood to save BIAM.
September 11, 2006... Byline: Ryan Harrison A Bank of Ireland Asset Management (BIAM) managing director poached an old Morgan Stanley colleague in a bid to stop the rot at the struggling Dublin- based fund manager. Paul Boyne, head of global equities at...

NIBS News in Brief: Axa picks up briefs after Deutsche loses scheme.
September 11, 2006... Axa Investment Managers and AllianceBernstein have picked up global equity briefs following Deutsche Asset Management's termination at a London Local Authority scheme. The GBP550m London Borough of Newham pension fund moved an undisclosed...

NIBS News in Brief: City Division takes another position from Gissings.
September 11, 2006... Gissings continued its run of losses to consultancy rivals City Division with the departure of drinks provider Cotts Beverages. SBJ was appointed to provide pension consulting, actuarial, investment and administration services to the...

NIBS News in Brief: Axa UK in late stages of Thinc Destini.
September 11, 2006... Axa UK looks set to take over multi-channel advisory business Thinc Destini Group. With more than 650 advisers and approximately GBP3bn of fund under advice, Axa plans to run the company as an independent consultancy firm separate from its...

NIBS News in Brief: Actuarials combine.
September 11, 2006... Expanding actuarial advice firm Cartwright Consulting bolstered its ranks with the acquisition of fellow pension advisers Barnes and Sherwood. Both firms specialise in providing actuarial advice to corporate final salary pension schemes...

NIBS News in Brief: BNP Inflation bonds.
September 11, 2006... The drought in inflation-linked bonds may see some respite following the launch of a fixed income vehicle from BNP Paribas Asset Management. The Parvest World Inflation-Linked bond offers a diversified range of bonds designed to protect...

News: Benchmark - It was easy at first...
September 11, 2006... Byline: Lindsay Tomlinson In the late nineteenth century, the Victorian physicists thought they had just about cracked it. All that was required was one last great push and they would have discovered all the secrets of the universe, which...

News: Big names go into battle for mandates in Lambeth.
September 11, 2006... Byline: Gill Wadsworth Rival multi-asset fund managers are battling for key mandates as a local authority pension fund diversifies its portfolio. Aberdeen Asset Management, Credit Suisse, Lazard and Majedie Asset Management are among...

News: GBP10m James Hay management buyout creates giant SSAS provider.
September 11, 2006... The UK's largest provider of small self-administered schemes (SSAS) has undergone a major management buyout worth GBP10m. Rowanmoor Pensions, formerly the SSAS business of James Hay Pension Trustees and the regulated business of James Hay...

News: Trustees should be made liable.
September 11, 2006... Byline: Daniel McAllister Professional trustees should not be able to hide behind scheme rules that allow them to shirk responsibility for maladministration, the pensions ombudsman David Laverick said. In the ombudsman's annual report,...

News: Government should shake up public sector schemes says ombudsman.
September 11, 2006... The pensions ombudsman called on the government to overhaul the public sector pension system and "lead the drive" for simple and uniform schemes. The comments, made in ombudsman David Laverick's annual report, argued the government needed...

News: Positive fund returns despite growing deficits.
September 11, 2006... Pension funds made healthy returns in August while deficits rocketed by GBP10bn over the month. Despite equity markets getting off to a shaky start in August, following an unexpected interest rate hike, fears of a slowdown in the US...

News: Events - Pensions Regulator's governance forum.
September 11, 2006... Held on September 12, London, the forum is open to pensions providers, administration firms, trustees and advisers, and offers the opportunity to discuss the regulator's governance survey and governance issues as a whole. To reserve a place...

News: Events - Mercer Human Resource Consulting.
September 11, 2006... Is organising the following courses and seminars over the next three months: Absence management - what works and why? October 12, Manchester. Contact Georgina Staniforth on 0161 837 6504. EU pensions - fact and fiction in the...

News: Funds are looking to add alpha.
September 11, 2006... Byline: Hannah Williams Pension funds are increasingly attracted to unconstrained investment opportunities in a bid to plug gaping deficits, according to fund managers. Invesco Perpetual reported UK unconstrained equities had...

News: Potential risks of Chinese equities remain ambiguous.
September 11, 2006... Fund managers are divided over the potential risks of direct investment in the Chinese equity market, with conflicting reports over the country's quality of governance. Aberdeen Asset Managers maintained that while the overall economic...

News: Employees choose pensions over perks.
September 11, 2006... Young employees covet healthy pension benefits above fashionable company lifestyle perks, research showed. A report from Jardine Lloyd Thompson (JLT) Benefit Solutions found one in four young workers would prefer their company to contribute...

News: Debts top priorities.
September 11, 2006... Investments and debt repayment trumped investing in a pension scheme as the top priority for people with additional incomes, a survey found. According to research by Watson Wyatt into the behaviour of people given an extra GBP200 a month...

News: Unions under fire.
September 11, 2006... Byline: Daniel McAllister Big business accused unions of double standards for attacking the size of directors' pension pots, last week. The deputy director-general of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), John Cridland, accused...

News: Nottinghamshire County Council pensions go digital.
September 11, 2006... Nottinghamshire County Council brought its pensions record-keeping system into the 21st century with the digitisation of its 1.8 million pensions documents. The council hired document services specialist Anacomp to convert the record...

Governance Watch: Power imbalance raises governance issues.
September 11, 2006... Alba will hold its annual general meeting (AGM) on September 20, 2006. The company's governance arrangements reflect its share ownership structure, as the board comprises members of the Harris family, who own 33.09% of the company's issued...

News: NAPF Notice Board.
September 11, 2006... NAPF practical guidance for pension schemes This coming autumn NAPF will stage a series of three topical seminars this autumn and the first of these takes place on September 19. Entitled 'Removing age discrimination from the...

Ombudsman Watch.
September 11, 2006... Style This week I look in depth at the ombudsman's annual report for 2005/6 published at the end of August. The first thing to note is the ombudsman has a new style and logo. He is the 'ppfo'. The first 'p' and the last 'o' of the logo are...

Campaign for Pensions Justice: Reporting the reality behind the headlines.
September 11, 2006... Unnamed wind-up victim "I am a retired employee of a so-called solvent employer wind-up and am in receipt of a guaranteed minimum pension (GMP) which equates to around two- fifths of my promised pension. I must confess to a certain...

Case Study: A good deal better.
September 11, 2006... Introducing a new pension scheme is a daunting task, particularly explaining the benefits to the employees whose old schemes are being replaced in a climate where most pension news is bad news. In 2005, CODASciSys undertook a major review...

Opinion: Leader - Fact is often stranger than fiction?
September 11, 2006... Pensions have long been part of the mainstream consciousness, intermittently dominating the front pages of the nation's broadsheet and tabloid newspapers for the past few years. However, even I was surprised when the subject cropped up on...

Opinion: Personal View - Forget volatility and focus on Asia's long-term prospects.
September 11, 2006... Byline: Tony Jordan Despite recent market correction, Asia remains a strong long-term investment opportunity, playing an ever-greater role as globalisation deepens and economic growth continues. Pension funds are looking to invest in...

Opinion: Inside view - Pick your stocks carefully to make the large-cap fit.
September 11, 2006... Byline: Christine Baalham Not long ago a journalist asked whether I felt that large-cap stocks represented an attractive investment opportunity. My response was a definite maybe (granted, this was probably not the unambiguous answer he was...

Special Focus: Unravelling the mystery.
September 11, 2006... Despite having been in operation for more than 30 years, enhanced indexation remains an enigma for pension funds, with the industry as divided on its prevalence as on its definition. Active plus or passive light? A growing trend or a peaked...

Special focus: Q&A.
September 11, 2006... Byline: Pamela Atherton The questions 1. What is enhanced indexation? 2. What does enhanced indexation involve? 3. What are the benefits of enhanced indexation? 4. How has enhanced indexation compared with active...

Company Profile: Invesco Perpetual.(Company overview)
September 11, 2006... Background Invesco Perpetual forms part of the AMVESCAP Group, one of the world's largest independent investment management organisations, with GBP227.6bn assets under management*. Our sole focus is investment management - so with no...

People on the Move: Credit Suisse snatches LDI specialist from Threadneedle.
September 11, 2006... Byline: Hannah Williams Threadneedle Investments has lost liability-driven investment (LDI) specialist Paul Bourdon to rival firm Credit Suisse. Bourden will head up the recently created European pension solutions group, in Credit...

People on the Move: Melluish rejoins Gartmore after time out.
September 11, 2006... Simon Melluish is returning to Gartmore after a stint setting up and managing his own commercial business. Rejoining the firm this month, Melluish will assume responsibility for orchestrating the sales and marketing activities surrounding...

People on the Move: Doyle to direct TPA services for Paymaster.
September 11, 2006... Paymaster has boosted its administration and annuity services team with the appointment of James Doyle as director of third-party administration (TPA). Doyle, who joins from Xansa, where he was sector director and responsible for leading...

People on the Move: Gilchrist-Fisher appointed to bolster CBRE's property trust.
September 11, 2006... CB Richard Ellis Investors has appointed Chris Gilchrist-Fisher as fund manager to support the growth of the company's property trust. Formerly director at Atisreal, Gilchrist-Fisher worked for both institutional and private clients in the...

People on the Move: JPMorgan makes Yiasoumi vice president of EMEA pension.
September 11, 2006... Costas Yiasoumi has been appointed as vice president to JPMorgan's pension advisory group for Europe the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). Yiasoumi, who joins from Mercer Human Resource Consulting, will be responsible for advising JPMorgan's...

News: PPF wants lay trustees out of the way, says scheme.
September 18, 2006... The Pension Protection Fund (PPF) has been accused of forcing lay trustees out of schemes entering the pensions lifeboat by allowing their insurance payments to be cut. In a meeting between the organisation and the representing unions of...

News: Administration gripes top the ombudsman's grievance list.
September 18, 2006... Byline: Hannah Williams Complaints about scheme administration account for the top three grievances brought to the pensions ombudsman, according to insurers. Speaking at the Ace pension risk seminar, Emma Watkins, pensions specialist...

News: Hewitt calls for regulation to be reconsidered.
September 18, 2006... The government must address the deepening generational divide in pensions caused by occupational provision, consultants warned. In a response to the white paper on pension reform, Hewitt Associates urged the government to reconsider...

News: Big firms adopt boutique style.
September 18, 2006... Byline: Ryan Harrison Large fund management firms are adopting multi-boutique strategies after criticism their thirst for assets was making trade unwieldy, multi-managers said. Major UK investment houses, including Schroders and...

News: Pension liabilities place equity deals under the thumb.
September 18, 2006... Pension liabilities are having a major impact on private equity deals and seriously affect bid negotiations, research showed. A survey of private equity firms carried out by Mercer Human Resource Consulting found almost a fifth of...