20 March 2012 The NAPF have added to their list of educational investment guides available on their website with two recent titles on Property Investment and Exchange Traded Funds. Links to the publications on their website: ABC of Property Investments and Exchange Traded Funds made simple
17 January 2012 The legislation covering the US Foreign Accounts Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) was drafted in 2010 with the intention of facilitating the identification of US taxpayers having accounts with foreign financial institutions and non-financial foreign entities. Its aim is to promote anti-avoidance by having managers of these entities notify the Inland Revenue Service of the identity of American nationals who are beneficiaries and, in the absence of such notification or a null return, custodians holding US domiciled investments would be required to applying a swingeing 30% withholding levy on payments to that entity.
25 November 2011 Following its previous consultation, the Pension Protection Fund has produced draft Contingent Asset guidance which will ultimately sit alongside the final 2012/13 Determination pack. External link
31 October 2011 October saw the release of notably high inflation figures – a two year peak for CPI and a twenty year peak for RPI – coinciding with the setting of pension increases for UK defined benefit pension schemes with September year-end. We provided a brief update at the time of release here but here present a more detailed paper on the direct and indirect impacts of inflation on these schemes. Inflation provides a good example of a crucial factor that affects both sides of the DB scheme balance sheet and our response as pension professionals should therefore bear…
21 October 2011 Yesterday, at their annual conference in Manchester, the NAPF announced the publication of their new ‘made simple’ guide on performance measurement, attribution and risk. This looks to be a really positive development for trustee understanding : I have to caveat slightly as I haven’t yet read the guide. Risk and performance are now inextricably linked in our minds but the area of performance attribution is often not yet paid as much attention as it deserves. It provides a lot of analytical detail into how and why performance was achieved and lost at both the asset allocation and…
As a regular attender at pension conferences it struck me as interesting that whilst the content of many presentations given by investment managers are good to very good on the technical side : for instance analysis of the macro-economic outlook or an assessment of investment prospects for one asset class : very few address or even touch upon two key areas for pension schemes: broader asset allocation and the investments implications as part of liability management. This lack of focus is particularly strange as attention here could help to build differentiated marketing bridges to trustees and advisers and it’s no…
