Report
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April, 2020
Border to Coast builds up support for private markets
Border to Coast Pensions Partnership, one of the largest public sector pension pools in the UK, has appointed Albourne Partners to support its private markets investment programme. The pool recently launched its alternatives private markets strategies, covering infrastructure, private equity and private credit, which secured around £1.8 billion of ...
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April, 2020
Retail price index to fall 1% annually
The retail price index is due to fall by around 1% a year under proposals from the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA), as it seeks to align it with the consumer price index, including housing costs. The authority, in consultation with HM Treasury, announced that it is seeking views on potential technical issues that could arise from switching the way RPI ...
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February, 2020
MSCI unveils climate risk tool
US index provider MSCI has launched a research product enabling investors to assess the climate risk of equities and corporate bonds within their portfolios. The Climate Value-At-Risk (VaR) tool provides forward-looking and return-based valuation assessments to measure the potential impact of climate change on company valuations and help investors identify ...
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February, 2020
Pensions Bill revived in parliament
The Pensions Bill was reintroduced to the House of Lords, which aims to crack down on pensions transfer scams and strengthen reporting of defined benefit investment strategies. The bill, which was delayed by the general election, required DB trustees to set out a formal funding and investment strategy in a chair’s statement to The Pensions Regulator ...
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February, 2020
RPI reform review delayed
A joint consultation on proposed reforms to the retail price index (RPI) was launched on the 11th of March. The suggested alignment of RPI with the housing variant of the consumer price index (CPIH) would reduce RPI by around 1% and schemes with CPI-linked liabilities may see a reduction in their funding levels of 10% or more, according to analysis by ...
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February, 2020
Trustees concerned about Opperman ESG intervention
More than one third of pensions professionals think the cost of regulation is too high and expressed concern over the pensions minister’s direct intervention on ESG issues, according to research from the Pensions Management Institute (PMI). The PMI’s latest Pulse Survey revealed that 34% of industry professionals were worried about the rising cost of ...
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February, 2020
DB schemes close to full-funding, though deficit challenges remain
More than half of the UK defined benefit schemes remain in deficit, according to the latest Pension Protection Fund (PPF) purple book, although the overall funding level has improved. The aggregate funding level of schemes rose to 99% at 31 March, from 97% the same time the previous year and 57% of schemes were in deficit, with an aggregate deficit of ...
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February, 2020
Pools could aid ESG analysis, say industry experts
Myriad challenges face local government pension schemes in balancing responsible investing with the need to generate sufficient investment returns, according to a white paper. Camradata’s report, Responsible Investing – the new normal, cited the lack of a standard ESG assessment process and the varied scoring systems used by ESG ratings agencies, which ...
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February, 2020
Brunel unveils green investment roadmap
Brunel Pension Partnership has thrown down the gauntlet to the asset management industry by issuing a radical set of climate policies, as it attempts to reduce the carbon intensity of its investments. The pool’s five-point plan includes mandating asset managers to stress test its portfolios’ resilience to various climate scenarios and justify any ...
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February, 2020
LGPS pools join drive to encourage Barclays to reform fossil fuel-related lending
LGPS Central and Brunel Pensions Partnership have joined with nine other major institutional investors in putting forward a resolution calling on Barclays to phase out financing of non-Paris Agreement aligned energy and utility companies. The resolution, led by the charity ShareAction, is the first climate change resolution filed at a European bank. It ...
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