Timelines are tight on the pension schemes bill
Pensions UK’s head of parliamentary affairs Katy Little said she had never seen a bill move as quickly though parliament as the pension schemes bill.
Morningstar drops long-held aversion to alternatives
Morningstar has long had a policy of not using alternatives in its portfolios, preferring instead to use a simple equities and bonds mix. But now this has changed.
Bumper corporate bond allocations drive net inflows
Three large European investors drove higher net inflows into corporate bonds and credit in the second quarter of this year, even as compressed spreads dampened UK pension scheme appetite for investment-grade credit.
Regulators are loosening the rules on crypto. Are asset owners interested?
Moves in the US are afoot to make it easier for pensions to invest in crypto - with Harvard’s endowment a prominent asset owner to do so. But is a similar trend in play on this side of the Atlantic?
Global comparison of pension investment rules holds warning for Rachel Reeves
Mercer studied 52 countries and found 77 per cent of them impose some sort of investment restriction
How worried should asset owners be about a private credit bubble?
Inflows to private credit have increased in recent years, along with the number of managers offering such investments. But the Bank of England is concerned. Should asset owners be as well?
Consultants are wary of equities as markets continue to push ever upwards
Consultants are wary about valuations as the AI-fuelled market boom continued unabated.
Isle of Wight pension committee not happy at ‘game of musical chairs’
The 21 LGPS abandoned by the closure of the Access and Brunel pools have all found a home, but the Isle of Wight Pension Fund isn’t happy with its lot
Demand for hedge funds rises as asset owners battle volatility
Last year a host of asset owners terminated mandates with hedge fund managers but the tide may have turned.
Charities are putting investment portfolios to harder work
Charities are finding themselves strapped for resources, so are shifting the allocations of their investment portfolios to achieve their philanthropic goals
Why is the LGPS still such a fan of ESG?
Retail investors have been pulling money out of ESG investments for several years as enthusiasm for the style turns negative. Is this reflected among asset owners?
Demand for equities rebounds among asset owners
Demand for equities rose, with the asset class accounting for more than a third of all expressions of interest and investments
Merger between Lothian and Falkirk schemes on hold…again
The merger between Lothian and Falkirk schemes has been put on ice…again
Family offices are spreading risk through more manager diversification
Paul Maia, a partner at McKinsey, explains how family offices and pension funds are changing their behaviour towards private equity.
Rachel Reeves wants more pension schemes to invest in UK private assets. Can she succeed?
What are the challenges facing the chancellor and are British pension schemes really are laggards compared to Canadian ones, when it comes to investing in private assets?
Has Rachel Reeves created a private assets bottleneck?
In the first edition of AOX we look at the early data on whether pension schemes are actually investing more in private assets or not, in response to Rachel Reeves’s requests.
Next generation of investors poses crypto question for family offices
Younger generations are encouraging family offices to switch from a wealth preservation approach to a growth-focused one.
Illiquid alternatives dominate Q4 in the UK LGPS space
In a continuation of the year’s trends, the final quarter of 2024 saw the individual local government pension schemes and LGPS pools surveyed by MandateWire targeting alternative asset classes, with a strong preference for property and infrastructure, as well as private debt.
Pension consolidators heed government call for private market investment
Pension consolidators ploughed into private market assets in the final quarter of 2024 as the Royal Mail Pension Fund appointed a manager to run the UK’s first ever collective defined contribution pension scheme.
Keep on running? UK pension funds discuss run-on as funding levels improve
Despite a quarter-on-quarter increase in transaction volumes, the number of bulk insurance deals completed by UK corporate pension funds in Q3 2024 was below the 16 recorded in the second quarter of the year. That drop in deals coincided with greater discussion around scheme run-on.