Press Releases

Commenting on potential pension saving tax breaks that would favour the millennial generation reportedly under consideration, Calum Cooper, Head of Trustee DB, said:

“The growing disparity of wealth between the generations is of huge concern. But re-distributing tax relief is like shuffling chairs on the Titanic.

“Changing tax treatment in this way is unlikely to effect the behaviour change needed. People will either default in to auto enrolment schemes with a little more relief, or they will not. Politically it might create a favourable impression among younger generations. But will it motivate them to save more? That’s unlikely. They’d have to save more to get more, and the issue is they have no spare cash to put aside and more pressing financial concerns to deal with.

We've hired Beenesh Googoolye and Ritchie Thomson as Senior Investment Consultants from Lane Clark & Peacock to its investment consulting practice.

Beenesh, who joins the London office after ten years at LCP, brings extensive consulting experience across both Defined Benefit (DB) and Defined Contribution (DC) investment, specialising in de-risking investment strategies, diversification and fixed income. At Hymans Robertson he will look to further develop existing client relationships while nurturing new DB business opportunities.

While at LCP, Ritchie specialised in providing investment advice across a wide range of DB schemes and insurance firms. From our Edinburgh office, Ritchie’s new role will see him continuing to focus on providing DB investment advice as part of our industry leading service.

We're delighted to announce that we've hired Adam Porter as an Associate Investment Research Consultant in our investment consulting practice.

Adam, who joins the investment research team, will lead the research on multi-asset strategies while also providing support on equities and real assets. Prior to joining Hymans Robertson, he spent four years at Buck Consultants where he was a senior research analyst focused on multi-asset, infrastructure and property investment managers. Adam has also held roles with Willis Towers Watson and RBS.

Guided Outcomes (GO) scooped the 'leading innovation in workplace solutions' prize at this year’s Schroders UK Platform Awards.

The awards, which are now in their tenth year, aim to recognise the most innovative and effective worksite platforms, which meet the needs of members, sponsor and adviser and offer a broad range of benefits and gain employees’ awareness and participation.

Canada Life announces £35 million buy-in transaction with A.G. Barr plc Pension and Life Assurance Scheme. Deal marks the third of its kind for Canada Life since they entered the market in 2015. Transaction largely funded by gilts.The deal covers over 50% of the Scheme’s total pensioner liability. A spokesman for the Trustee of the A.G. Barr plc (2008) Pension and Life Assurance Scheme said: "The trustee is pleased to have taken another important step in our ongoing process to improve the level of security of all our members' benefits. This deal reduces risk to the pension scheme, providing increased certainty to our sponsoring company, and most importantly, increased security to our members."

We believe: The large majority of schemes are well managed and should be able to pay benefits in full; The regulatory regime should not be changed, with the potential to undermine the majority of well-run schemes, to deal with challenges of a few at the edges; A low interest rate environment does not warrant an exceptional approach; 

Key findings of our second annual Independent Trustee Survey:A quarter of independent trustees believe sponsor failure – also known as ‘covenant risk’, is one of the biggest risks to DB schemes; Yet 43% of independent trustees say long-term covenant risk isn’t integrated into schemes’ strategic investment and funding decisions. Almost a quarter say the biggest challenge facing trustee boards is incorporating covenant alongside contribution and investment strategy.

The UK’s combined DB deficit could be reduced by £175bn if all schemes could switch from RPI to CPI for pension increases and revaluation – but this would reduce the benefits of an average DB scheme member by £20,000. If schemes could reduce pension revaluation and increases further to the statutory minimum requirement, this could take a third off the £1 trillion UK DB deficit but cut the average scheme member’s benefits by £32,500. When schemes enter the PPF, members benefits are reduced by £45,000 on average.

Delivering on the ambition of bringing everyone’s DC and state pension data into a consolidated is no small undertaking. But it’s a hugely important step in helping to solve the crippling savings crisis we face as a nation. Post the referendum on Brexit, three quarters of those with DC pensions are unlikely to secure an adequate income in retirement

Welcome to our summer edition edition of Administration Matters, our quarterly newsletter on current issues affecting pension administration. 

An update on how Brexit has impacted the markets, policy, DB funding and broader long term savings.

The reverberations of the UK's vote to leave the EU may be felt for many years, but even a few weeks have allowed financial markets to take stock.