pension

At an investment board meeting held this week the Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System (IPERS) conceptually approved a new allocation to a Man AHL managed catastrophe bond fund, as the pension looks to bring more absolute return strategies into its portfolio.

In an increasingly volatile and uncertain financial world where the investment landscape has been exposed to unpredictable shocks, pension funds have been among the most affected by equity market declines and this is expected to further heighten the desire to diversify their asset portfolios.

The Board of Directors of the Pensionskasse Basel-Stadt have elected to dissolve the pensions insurance-linked securities (ILS) investment portfolio, opting to allocate more to domestic real estate opportunities and fixed income instead.

One of the longest-standing end-investor allocators to the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market has left his employer, as a re-organisation at the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP) sees its Managing Director of ILS Philippe Trahan departing the organisation.

The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board (OTPP), a long-standing pension investor in the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market, has promoted Gillian Brown, an executive who has had responsibility for the ILS allocation activities of the plan for a number of years.

Despite the well-publicised impacts to pensions because of the global decline in asset values through 2022, US corporate pension funds actually ended the year with their largest funding surplus in decades.

The Board of the Plymouth County Retirement Association, a retirement manager that provides pensions and benefits to over 11,500 participants from 24 municipalities, 5 regional schools, 17 housing authorities, and 6 special districts, is seeking an insurance-linked securities (ILS) investment manager for an allocation.

Government instigated performance tests for Australian superannuation funds, so pension and retirement investment houses, could potentially have an effect of making investing into asset classes like insurance-linked securities (ILS) at scale more challenging, research suggests.

PGGM, the Dutch pension fund investment manager and the largest end-investor in the insurance-linked securities (ILS) space, has promoted its employee Youssef Sfaif to the role of Director, Credit & Insurance Linked Investments.

Reinsurance firm Swiss Re has entered into an agreement with HSBC to purchase over 400,000 individual and group pension and related annuity policies as well as GBP £4.2 billion in unit-linked assets from HSBC Life (UK) Limited.