News

Pensions market set for busy year end; Raise pension age to 70, say directors; Sovereign funds lined up to bolder venture capital

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development is to close its defined benefit pension scheme to new members from January.

The deadline to nominate your providers for the Global Pensions Awards 2010 has passed.

UK - The West Midlands Pension Fund has invested £30m ($50m) in the BlueBay emerging market opportunity fund.

GLOBAL - The vast majority of institutional investors (81%) did not make any new commitments to infrastructure in 2009, a drastic slowdown in fundraising from last year, a survey from Preqin revealed.

UK - Bulk annuity sales could hit £3bn (US$4.9bn) this year after pension funds purchased more than £2.4bn during the first three quarters of 2009, Mercer said.

GLOBAL - Private pension funds have not been using benchmarks that measure them against their long-term goal of providing income replacement, a preliminary report by the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) found.

US - Trustees of the Colorado Public Employees Retirement Association (PERA) have proposed increasing employee and employer contribution rates in order to bring the scheme back up to full funding.

US - Asset managers can expect slimmer bonuses this year as firms continue to struggle from the downturn, according to a new report by recruitment firm Russell Reynolds Associates.

Current incentives to defer taking a pension are so attractive they provide a "back door" state retirement age of 70, the Institute of Directors says.