The Pensions Management Institute (PMI) has launched TrustSec, an online guide for the secretary to the trustee board. The online resource, developed in partnership with international law firm Mayer Brown’s pension practice, helps those in the role to develop their pensions knowledge and...
Ceri Jones, financial journalist, reports on the training available for trustees who have so much to learn in so little time
The obligations on pension scheme trustees have widened in recent years, at the same time as they are struggling to contend with a swiftly changing regulatory environment and a wide range of extremely complex issues that range from sponsor covenants, to enhanced transfer values, age...
The issue of improving scheme governance and how to go about it cannot be ignored any longer advises Adam Stanley, Punter Southall
Governance is an increasingly fashionable word used to cover a wide range of topics. As a result, the sense of what governance stands for can often be lost.
The common message from advisers is that trustees need to improve scheme governance, but many trustees do not understand in practical...
The pressure is on to widen the scope of what is meant by the fiduciary duty of trustees warns Anthony Hilton, Evening Standard
One of the interesting things about investment and one of the challenges for investors is that, while we have a long experience of how to value a company, we do not know how to value a management. Companies have all sorts of acceptable metrics – market capitalisation, asset value and the...
ACE has been appointed with its partner OPDU (The Occupational Pensions Defence Union) to provide and administer pension trustee liability cover to the NEST Corporation, the trustee body responsible for running the UK Government’s new flagship National Employment Savings Trust (NEST)...
Many trustee boards still fail to sufficiently and proactively monitor their sponsors’ covenant, according to Mercer’s recent trustee survey.
Trustee boards’ reluctance to tackle areas of conflict of interest and general discomfort in challenging the employer are behaviours...
Many trustee boards still fail to sufficiently and proactively monitor their sponsors’ covenant, according to Mercer’s Trustee Survey. Trustee boards’ reluctance to tackle areas of conflict of interest and general discomfort in challenging the employer are behaviours often...
Should trusteeship carry a government wealth warning? asks Anne Lawson, AWD Chase Consulting
In the current markets where business costs are being scrutinised, many believe that traditional defined benefit pension schemes will come under further pressures as employers try to control their budgets and liabilities. Where does this leave the precarious position of a scheme’s trustees...
Don’t miss out on attractive investment opportunities. Timing tips for trustees from Barry Mack, Hymans Robertson
Investment markets have been volatile in the past 12 to 24 months, revealing some attractive opportunities that pension scheme trustees may have missed, not necessarily because they did not know about them – perhaps there was not the realisation that some profits could be banked and adverse...
An astonishing 67% of FTSE-100 final salary pension schemes are still exposed to potential conflicts of interest by failing to appoint independent chairmen to their board of trustees, reveals new research from Trustee GAAPS, the trustee search and selection firm.
Only one in three (33%) of the...
A lower annual allowance will still present trustees with administrative and communication challenges, warns Andrew Hoddinott, PricewaterhouseCoopers
Many trustees struggling with the prospect of the “high income excess relief charge” (HIERC) introduced by the Finance Act 2010 will have welcomed the Chancellor’s Emergency Budget decision on 22 June 2010 to reconsider whether this should be introduced after all. There is at...
Trustees are demanding more formal training. Ceri Jones, financial journalist, surveys the available courses
Under the terms of the Pensions Act 2004, trustees are expected to be familiar with the laws relating to pension schemes and trusts, and the documents governing their own scheme, and understand the principles behind funding and investment.
This requirement has been given the title “...
