All Pensions articles – Page 6
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White papersDB plans in their End Game in the post-pandemic era
An inopportune toxic confluence of three unrelated forces has badly undermined the finances of employer-sponsored defined benefit pension plans, in which employers bear most of the risks involved in providing decent retirement pensions to their employees.
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White papersA smoother journey to the endgame
After years of seemingly always being at least 10 years from full funding, UK Defined Benefit (DB) pension schemes appear to be moving closer to the end of their journey. But what is their destination, what is the plan for getting there and how can fiduciary management help?
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White papersCase Study: Avoiding cash drag using Equity Index futures
Cash is a necessary component of most investment portfolios. It’s present in a portfolio for operational reasons, including managing subscription/redemption flows and income streams such as dividends.
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White papersInvestment Insights - Closing the funding and income gap
In this current low-yield environment, how can UK defined pension schemes position their portfolios to improve funding levels and cashflows as they continue de-risking?
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White papersStrategic Asset Allocation for a Default Pension Plan
This literature review discusses how to design a default life-cycle asset allocation for a defined contribution (DC) pension scheme. This default option may be the same for all participants, or it could be customised to plan members’ profiles.
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White papersCOVID-19 Strained Participant Financial Wellness: Can Employers Help Them Recover?
With COVID-19 still a top employer concern, protecting workers’ health and well-being naturally comes first. But the pandemic’s impact isn’t limited to only physical and mental health: financial wellness is also ailing. The crisis has exacerbated the problem, but it’s not exactly a sudden occurrence.
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White papersA factors-first approach to efficiently growing assets in the surplus space
Corporate pension plans’ top priority: Building efficient portfolios in the surplus space
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White papersAmundi Pension Funds Letter n°12
The coming of summer has also seen the return of extreme heatwaves, catastrophic flooding and devastating forest fires. The arrival of the COP26 could not be more timely given the need for a universal response to the climate crisis. Pension funds as major global asset owners have a key role to play in this response.
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White papersAmundi Pension Funds Letter n°11
In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, a lot of discussion has focused on the worsening of the retirement prospects of savers around the world. Indeed, exceptional policies, such as the possibility of raiding retirement pots in advance and the low interest rate environment supported by dovish monetary policies, could potentially have dramatic impacts on the availability of pensions in the long run.
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White papersThe role global corporate bonds play for Irish defined benefit schemes
As Irish DB pension schemes continue to de-risk, an allocation to investment grade credit could offer compelling opportunities within a well-diversified portfolio.
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White papersCore Matters: Sustainability and Adequacy in EU Public and Private Pension Schemes
As reported by EUROSTAT1 in 2019, pensions are the main income source for close to one quarter of the EU‐28 population. Therefore, it is very important that pensions should provide retirees with a decent standard of living and protect them from poverty.
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White papersPrivate credit markets – adjusting, adapting and responding
Lately, there has been renewed interest to get deals done and enter into negotiations on new investments as private credit markets re-open following a period of relative stability and reduced volatility in publicly-traded markets.
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White papersOptimizing pension plan outcomes using public and private real assets
Allocating to real assets is rarely straightforward, and investing in them is often considered a trade-off between performance and liquidity. Our latest paper offers a framework to help investors with those concerns and the key considerations when selecting public versus private investments.
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White papersSeeking income – the case for investing in private corporate debt
Pension funds with current cashflow requirements depend on a steady stream of payouts, but face a number of unique challenges in their search for income against a backdrop of lower-for-longer yields and volatile investment conditions brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
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White papersAmundi Pension Fund Letter N 10
Today, investors have a unique opportunity to observe the spreading of a real virus alongside the viral nature of financial markets and the real economy. As Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Shiller points out in his book, “Narrative Economics: How Stories Go Viral and Drive Major Economic Events”, stories and images are created around new economic events1. In some cases, these stories are memories of the past and their spreading can have major implications regarding performances of economies and financial markets.
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White papersCreating Resilient Pension Portfolios Post Covid-19
Covid-19 is a ‘once in a hundred years’ cataclysmic event. Superlatives that do it justice are hard to find.
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White papersCash flow matching through a crisis
As defined benefit pension funds mature, their need for cash-generating investments only increases.
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White papersThe Covid-19 crisis: two sides of the same coin for pension funds
From a long-term investment perspective, the unprecedented global crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic brings along both challenges and opportunities, which constitute two sides of the same coin for institutional investors such as pension funds.
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White papersJust what the doctor ordered
When you’ve got a sore knee, you don’t go see a brain surgeon.
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White papersOpportunity exists for US, UK and Canadian pension funds who are prepared to de-risk
We recently witnessed the end of a very important moment, when US, UK and Canadian pension funds were simultaneously at the best funded status they had experienced in ten years. At the same time, all three markets had new entrants in pension insurance and reinsurance with ample insurer capacity, vibrant price competition and attractive buy-in and buy-out pricing. Additionally, seven years of lower than expected longevity improvements meant the lowest liability pricing from insurers and reinsurers in over ten years.
