Sort content by
Uncategorised posts

Merton’s message: give up on alpha

Nobel Prize winner, Robert Merton, has thrown down the gauntlet. He claims that by focusing on a retirement income goal he can beat any competitor that is managing a 70:30 portfolio that has wealth accumulation as the goal. Do you dare take him on? The defined contribution pension management industry has it wrong, according to […]
Amanda WhiteDecember 18, 2013
FIS Amsterdam 2013

Hybrids win governance race: Wisconsin research findings

Hybrid pension schemes, combining both defined contribution and defined benefit characteristics, are best for governance because they align interest of both employees and sponsors argue David Villa, chief investment officer of the $91-billion State of Wisconsin Investment Board (SWIB) and Sorina Zahan, partner and chief investment officer of Chicago-based Core Capital Management, speaking at Conexus […]
Sarah RundellOctober 22, 2013
WPF Risk Summit

Hybrids: best of both worlds

The funding levels of US public pension funds, falling from 100 per cent in 2001 to 77 per cent now, is the result of bad governance, according to David Villa, chief investment officer of the $91 billion State of Wisconsin Investment Board (SWIB). He says irrational governance and imprudent management has resulted in the funding […]
Amanda WhiteAugust 27, 2013
Uncategorised posts

Holland’s hybrid: defined ambition

Jan Tamerus, actuary director at PGGM, was instrumental in developing the new Dutch pension defined-ambition structure. Back in 2006, he was involved in looking at the sustainability of the defined benefit system and in concluding it was not in fact sustainable, the idea of defined ambition evolved. One of the key reasons for not going […]
Amanda WhiteMay 1, 2013
Uncategorised posts

Cass creates principles
for DC model

As almost every market in the world looks to move from defined benefit to some sort of defined contribution model, academics at the Pensions Institute of the Cass Business School, City University London have developed a set of 15 principles for designing a defined contribution model. The principles, consistent with the recently published OECD guidelines, are based […]
Amanda WhiteMarch 27, 2013
Investor Profile

Defined benefit thrives at Migros

Success stories at pension funds are a real rarity in crisis-ravaged Europe, with deficits hampering countless major international firms. The CHF16.9-billion ($18.1-billion) pension fund of Swiss supermarket cooperative, Migros, is firmly in the blessed minority of funds enjoying rude health. Migros Pensionskasse was even able to boost its surplus to $1.3 billion in 2011 while […]
Dan BillinghamOctober 24, 2012
<5of7>