Charles Goddard has left independent trustee firm Capital Cranfield to run his own practice.

What would Leon Trotsky be doing in an article about pensions? If you can bear with me for two paragraphs, I can explain.

The collapse of Woolworths and MFI last week highlights the increased burden trustees face in this turbulent time, says Redington Partners.
Trustees are now forced not only to measure, manage, and monitor risks within the pension scheme, but to closely evaluate the financial health of the sponsor.

Statutory guidance on how local authority government pension schemes should deal with ill-health retirement has failed to appease doctors.

The £100m British Regional Airlines Group pension scheme has appointed Mercer as its actuarial and investment adviser.

A former financial director who saw his pension in payment cut from £66,000 to £17,000 will act as a test case for 200 fellow ex-employees.

Pension funds have put too much emphasis on the number of people employed in hedge funds when choosing managers, and should focus more on quality.

The Association of Consulting Actuaries (ACA) has called on the government not to lose sight of reforms allowing risk-sharing in final salary schemes.

Conservative leader David Cameron has angered the public sector by hinting a Conservative government would phase out their final salary pensions.

Schemes should suspend lending assets to third parties unless they fully understand the arrangements, according to an investment consultant.

Proposals for making explicit the remuneration advisers receive on pension products have been praised by the pensions industry. The proposals are contained in the Financial Services Authority’s (FSA) interim report and feedback document on the forthcoming retail distribution review (RDR).

The Pensions Act 2008’s royal assent will breathe new life into the Personal Accounts Delivery Authority (PADA), according to chief executive Tim Jones.

Only one in 10 employers predict personal accounts will go ahead as planned, according to a survey.

Most schemes are still planning to offload their pension liabilities to an insurer despite the volatility in the market, according to a survey.

The salaries of pension scheme board members are rising due to the onerous nature of trusteeship, according to Mercer.

The government is under pressure to provide detail on the self-certification scheme for personal accounts.
The certification procedure will be laid out in regulations, which will be published for consultation next year.

Analysis: The pre-Budget report contains much to interest workers and savers, but how have the changes affected the pensions industry, asks Charlie Kirby.

I was thinking about something I read the other day about the auto-enrolment of something like 10 million employees into pension saving in 2012. The pension saving that 10 million people are to be swept into in 2012 will be voluntary, in the sense that if they don’t want to save in a pension, people who get auto-enrolled will be allowed to opt out.

Unprecedented regulatory changes will shrink the hedge fund industry, according to Watson Wyatt.

Pension schemes should buy and hold emerging market equities instead of selling them, according to research by an asset manager.

Blue Bay Asset Management has launched a high income loan fund in response to requests from institutional investors.

The financial crisis highlights several shortcomings of current pension accounting standards and methods may have to be revised. By Hitesh Patel.

Some are predicting that given the PPF is still considerably underfunded, it may soon be forced to cut benefit levels further. By Ben Shaw.

Leverage

Also known as gearing of borrowing. Leverage is an American phrase which describes the position in which a company’s equity or shareholders’ funds have been geared up or leveraged by the use of borrowing.

As remuneration is a sensitive subject, official research into incentives could be very useful, says Tom Powdrill.

NAPF Investment
Conference 2009
March 11-13
Edinburgh International Conference Centre (EICC)

One happy actuary who is unaffected by the VAT rise in beer is Antony Hayes from Hewitts, who runs his own microbrewery from his home in Kent.

Fiduciary management is one option for trustees facing the relentless task of running and managing their scheme, but who is using it?
From an initial search, the potential providers seem to include Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM) and BlackRock, both of whom are looking to move into the UK market. Both firms certainly have the experience behind them to do this – between them they manage £34.6bn of predominately Dutch pension assets.

Hedge fund is a catch-all term for many strategies. Is there a case for rebranding more cautious strategies to escape negative perceptions?

Old Mutual Asset Managers (OMAM) has appointed two UK equity analysts. Nick Williamson (pic) joins the firm’s mid and small cap team from Citigroup, where he was a UK small and mid cap analyst covering various companies.

Impax Group, the specialist environmental investment company, has appointed Victor Juttmann as investment manager.

Wragge & Co has appointed Mike Woodall as a strategist to strengthen its public sector pensions team.

Watson Wyatt has named Neville McKay as head of sales for settlement services as part of a strategy to develop the business.