Category: Pension Newsroom

Ontario is moving forward with its planned expansion of retirement benefits, even if other provinces aren’t yet following.

The rest of Canada will eventually follow, but the country is currently studying various angles of retirement benefit expansion. A decision will come in December.

More from The Globe and Mail:

The ORPP will apply to people who do not already have a comparable workplace pension. It will be funded by contributions from workers, matched by their employers. For someone earning $45,000 annually, the ORPP would return $6,410 a year in retirement if paid into for an entire working life; for someone earning $90,000 or more, that figure would be $12,815.

The pension plan will be administered at arm’s length from the government and run by civil service veteran Mr. Rafi. Formerly the top bureaucrat in the province’s massive health ministry, he most recently handled the high-profile assignment of steering the Pan American Games in Toronto last summer. Between salary and bonuses, he will be eligible for up to $656,250 in annual pay in his new job.

While Ontario leaps off the diving board, the rest of the provinces are huddled nervously by the shallow end, tentatively dipping their toes in the water.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged to pursue CPP enhancement in his winning campaign last year, and Mr. Morneau is now trying to reach a consensus with the provinces. Any expansion of CPP must be agreed to by Ottawa and at least seven provinces representing two-thirds of the country’s population.

Mr. Morneau’s spokesman said he is “absolutely committed to ‎moving forward on enhancing the CPP,” but he does not have a preconceived notion of exactly what the enhancement will look like – whether similar to the ORPP or something else.

Canada is currently studying the effects of expanding retirement benefits; how businesses would react, how GDP would be affected, and which workers the expansion should affect in the first place.

 

Photo credit: “Canada blank map” by Lokal_Profil image cut to remove USA by Paul Robinson – Vector map BlankMap-USA-states-Canada-provinces.svg.Modified by Lokal_Profil. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons

A new accounting requirement, issued by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) and directed at cost-sharing retirement plans, could lead to in-fighting between cities and states, according to a recent report.

The report, released by the Center for State and Local Government Excellence and the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, says cities and states could bicker over their respective shares of unfunded pension liabilities.

More details from BenefitsPro:

[The new GASB rule] requires employers that participate in cost-sharing pension plans to report their share of a state’s “net pension liability” on their balance sheet is having a substantial impact on many large cities that participate in cost-sharing state plans.

[…]

GASBB’s rule change not only requires employers to move pension funding information from footnotes onto their balance sheets, but also requires those who participate in cost-sharing plans to provide information regarding their share of the net pension liability on their books.

The liability isn’t new, and does not affect the funded status of a pension plan.

However, reporting their share of such liabilities has nearly doubled the burden of the 92 cities in the study that are in such plans.

“Local governments—now saddled with a portion of the state plan’s unfunded liabilities on their books—may be more interested in seeing the unfunded liability decline over time and will have a vested interest in ensuring that their contributions are doing just that,” [the report says].

In its footnotes, the study reported that, because of the change, “political tensions have already begun to emerge between a state and the local governments involved in its cost-sharing plans.”

Read the report here.

 

Photo by Laura Gilmore via Flickr CC License

Reporter Ed Mendel covered the Capitol in Sacramento for nearly three decades, most recently for the San Diego Union-Tribune. More stories are at Calpensions.com.

A new California board, Secure Choice, is looking at two options for a plan that would require most employers to offer workers the option of an “automatic IRA,” a payroll deduction for a tax-deferred retirement savings plan.

One option has no protection against investment losses, unless expensively insured. The other has a reserve, built with peak earnings in good investment years, that could over time be used to reduce losses in bad years.

After 2½ years of work, crunch time is here. Last week, the nine-member Secure Choice board scheduled a meeting on March 23 to pick the retirement savings plan that will be sent to the Legislature for approval.

It’s part of a national trend among states to attempt to supplement federal Social Security as average life spans lengthen, health care costs grow, and an annual survey finds only a fifth of workers expect to have enough money to retire comfortably.

More than half of the states have legislation that could implement (five states), study (18), or has considered (four) retirement savings plans, according to the Georgetown University Center for Retirement Initiatives.

In an important boost, the Obama administration’s labor department, as urged by California and other states, issued guidelines last fall exempting state-sponsored savings plans from a federal pension law (ERISA) that imposes burdens on employers.

California was an early leader in the trend when Senate President Pro Tempore Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles, introduced legislation in 2008 for a state-sponsored savings plan while he was still in the Senate.

De Leon finally obtained legislation (SB 1234 in 2012), despite opposition from business groups worried about another employer burden, taxpayer groups fearing more pension-like debt, and Republicans who prefer private-sector solutions.

But approval only only came after he agreed to a heavy lift: a legal and market analysis not paid for by the state, approval for IRA-like tax treatment, exemption from ERISA, a self-sustaining plan, and final legislative approval giving opponents another chance to block it.

Meanwhile, other states are moving faster. California was not the model in New Jersey last week as the Legislature clashed with Gov. Chris Christie, one of the Republicans running for president this year.

A Democratic proposal for a state-sponsored retirement plan similar to a payroll-deduction in Illinois, which is expected to start enrollment next year, was approved by the New Jersey Legislature with the backing of AARP, a powerful retirement group.

Christie vetoed the plan, saying it would burden small businesses and duplicate private-sector plans. Then the Legislature approved his proposal for a marketplace, similar to one in Washington state, where small employers can shop for retirement plans.

Another sign of the national trend was a report issued last week by the Pew National Trusts: “Who’s in, Who’s out: A Look at Employer-Based Retirement Plans and Participation in the States.”

In California access to and participation in a job-based retirement plan are both below the national average among states, the Pew report found, an echo of the data on the Secure Choice website in the office of state Treasurer John Chiang.

About 6.3 million California private-sector workers do not have an employer that sponsors an retirement plan, said the Secure Choice website, nearly two-thirds of them people of color.

“Nearly half (47 percent) of California workers — public and private — are currently on track to retire with incomes below 200 percent of federal poverty level (i.e., about $22,000 a year),” said the website.

A payroll deduction is said to be a proven way to increase retirement savings. A decision to set money aside to invest for retirement is made only once, not repeatedly amid daily budget pressures as paychecks arrive.

Under Secure Choice, workers with employers that have five or more employees, but offer no retirement plan, would be automatically enrolled in the new state savings plan, unless they opt out.

One of the plan options being considered by the Secure Choice board is like an IRA with no loss protection. The board would have to make a decision about the type of investment funds and whether they would be insured to provide loss protection.

The other option is an innovative pooled IRA that gives the employee something like a variable-rate savings bond. But it has a reserve fund, built up over time by taking some of the peak investment returns, that could be used to offset investment losses.

The Secure Choice board, depending on annual investment returns, would decide how much to credit the savings bond and whether to dip into the reserve. Models project the reserve could reach 40 percent of the total trust fund in 20 to 25 years.

That’s said to be large enough to offset an investment loss like the one in the recent financial crisis. Some think this option would have potential problems with generational equity, liability for board decisions, and pressure to spend large reserves.

But without using taxpayer money, the pooled IRA may be nearest De Leon’s original vision of a “cash balance” plan that provides a guaranteed minimum return, like the California State Teachers Retirement System’s Defined Benefit Supplement.

Secure Choice raised $1 million in donations, half from the Laura and John Foundation, to hire Overture Financial for a market analysis and K&L Gates for legal analysis.

Last week, the Secure Choice board increased the $498,366 Overture contract by $25,000, mainly for travel from its New York office, and the $275,000 K&L Gates contract by $80,000 to pursue a precautionary SEC exemption from securities law.

The final Overture report, which will not recommend a plan option, is expected to be delivered by the end of this month. After public display during February, hearings on the report are scheduled in Los Angeles on March 1 and in Oakland on March 3.

Then the board staff, acting Secure Choice director Christina Elliot and David Morse of K&L Gates, are expected to use public input from the hearings and the Overture report to make a plan recommendation to the board for action on March 23.

Whether De Leon prefers one of the plan options being considered by the board, or an alternative, was an unanswered question last week. Legislation approving a Secure Choice plan would create a new state program touching millions.

It could begin modestly, then evolve over time.

State Street has agreed to a settlement with the SEC of $12 million after one of its executives, who has since been fired, was found to have been involved in a pay-to-play scheme for Ohio pension contracts.

The details of the scheme, from the Boston Globe:

An investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission found that a former State Street executive made a deal with Ohio’s then-deputy treasurer to provide illicit cash payments and campaign contributions in exchange for business.

In return, the SEC said, the Boston-based financial services giant received contracts to handle administrative services for three public pension funds.

[…]

[Former State Street executive Vincent] DeBaggis allegedly led State Street to enter into a purported lobbying agreement with an immigration lawyer named Mohammed Noure Alo, the SEC said, who had connections to Ohio’s then-deputy treasurer, Amer Ahmad.

From February 2010 to April 2011, State Street paid $160,000 in fees to Alo, and a substantial portion of that was routed to Ahmad, the SEC said.

[…]

“Pension fund contracts cannot be obtained on the basis of illicit political contributions and improper payoffs,” said Andrew J. Ceresney, director of the SEC’s Enforcement Division, in a statement. “DeBaggis corruptly influenced the steering of pension fund custody contracts to State Street through bribes and campaign donations.”

Pension360 covered the investigation when it was in its infancy last year.

 

Photo by Securities and Exchange Commission via Flickr CC License

In March 2014, Boeing froze defined-benefit pensions for all of its non-union employees and shifted them into a 401(k) plan. The change affected 68,000 workers.

This week, Boeing struck a deal with the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA), the union that represents its engineers.

The union agreed to a deal that freezes some engineers’ pensions and shifts them into a 401(k) plan.

Details from Nasdaq:

Boeing Co. and its white-collar engineers’ union said Wednesday they had reached a tentative agreement on a six-year contract extension, avoiding a potentially bruising fight that would’ve renewed long-standing tensions between employees and management.

The existing four-year contract was set to expire in October, and, if renewed, would provide Boeing with labor stability into the 2020s and shift the last large group of its unionized employees away from a defined benefit pension program.

The union’s leadership said it had unanimously endorsed the agreement, recommending its members ratify the extension which, if approved, would take effect Feb. 11 and continue through Oct. 6, 2022.

[…]

Under the new agreement, all Speea represented employees hired before March 2013 would shift to a defined contribution pension at the end of 2018. A traditional pension had been preserved for existing engineers during the last round of talks in 2013. The machinists and Boeing’s non-represented employees are slated to switch fully to a 401(k) defined- contribution plan later this year, following a freeze of its existing pension benefits.

Union members still have to ratify the contract extension.

 

Photo by Christian Junker via Flickr CC License

In Kentucky, like all states, lawmakers earn a public pension.

But unlike most states, the details of those pension benefits are secret in Kentucky, and do not qualify for disclosure under open records or FOIA laws.

A bill, currently in the Senate, seeks to change that.

From the Lexington Herald-Leader:

Senate Bill 45 would require public disclosure of individual benefits for current and former legislators enrolled in the legislative pension system, the judicial pension system, the Kentucky Retirement Systems for state employees or the Kentucky Teachers’ Retirement System for educators.

“I think we’ll learn that the vast majority of people who retire don’t draw the kind of pensions that people think they do. But there are some select circumstances where people have done things the public would find egregious in terms of spiking benefits,” McDaniel told reporters after the Senate Committee on State and Local Government voted unanimously for his bill.

McDaniel said he expects the full Senate to approve his bill by early next week.

Pension transparency bills in the past have hit a roadblock in the House State Government Committee, where Chairman Brent Yonts, D-Greenville, is an opponent.

“My basic philosophy is, if you’re in public office or if you’re a public employee, then what you’re currently earning as salary should be public information, and it is,” Yonts said Wednesday. “Once you’ve retired, though, what you draw from retirement benefits is nobody else’s business.”

Kentucky’s judicial pension system is 85 percent funded, making it the state’s healthiest pension system by far.

 

Photo by TaxRebate.org.uk

The Pew Charitable Trusts released a report Wednesday analyzing retirement plan access and participation in the United States.

One chart (see above) maps the percent of each state’s population that has access to a retirement plan through their employer. In terms of regions, the Midwest and the Northeast have the highest rates of plan access; Texas, Florida and New Mexico lag far behind.

From Pew:

Because of the differences in retirement plan access and participation across the United States, legislators should consider the unique social and economic features of each state as they try to expand retirement saving through the workplace. For example, certain states have more workers at small businesses or in industries with relatively high turnover. Policymakers will need to balance the goal of increasing retirement savings against the challenges and concerns that such firms face. Other states have higher shares of minority workers who may benefit from targeted outreach materials to expand participation in new or existing plans. Taking these types of characteristics into account can help policymakers improve retirement security while balancing the needs of both workers and employers.

Another chart (see below) maps plan participation; participation rates follow a similar pattern as access rates.

Read the full report here.

Leo Kolivakis is a blogger, trader and independent senior pension and investment analyst. This post was originally published at Pension Pulse.

Anna Kitanaka and Shigeki Nozawa of Bloomberg report, Japan’s GPIF Debates 3% Stock Cap in Push for In-House Investing (h/t: Pension360):

The world’s biggest pension fund signaled a willingness to cap direct holdings at 3 percent of a company’s stock as it seeks freedom to invest in equities itself rather than hiring asset managers.

Japan’s $1.2 trillion Government Pension Investment Fund currently tells external fund managers to hold less than 5 percent of a company, Hiromichi Mizuno, chief investment officer for the fund, said at a health ministry pension panel on Tuesday. Should GPIF begin direct investments in stocks, a 3 percent limit on holdings of each company should be considered, Mizuno said, without explaining why.

The fund has undergone unprecedented changes since 2013, paring its bond allocation to make way for more equities and a foray into alternative investments. GPIF’s overseers at Japan’s health ministry now want to improve the fund’s governance by creating a board of directors, and are debating whether laws should be changed to allow the fund to invest in stocks directly.

“I’m frequently meeting the CIOs of global pension funds, and when I tell them that most of our investments are outsourced and that only some passive domestic bond investments are in-house, they look amazed, and I’m sick of seeing it,” Mizuno said. “From a global standpoint, GPIF’s investment is behind the curve.”

The government panel is likely to meet about three more times to discuss changes to the law determining what GPIF assets can buy directly. The fund’s own staff managed 867.3 billion yen ($7.4 billion) of active domestic bond investments and 31.4 trillion yen in passive Japanese debt holdings at the end of March.

Debate, Law

When the panel met earlier this month, the health ministry proposed establishing a 10-person committee as it moves closer to completing the long-awaited governance revamp. If the panel agree GPIF should begin in-house stock investments, the health ministry will draft a bill along with the governance proposal and submit it to the Diet, which runs through mid-June.

By investing directly in equities, GPIF would gain access to more market information and reduce the fees it pays external managers, according to Mizuno. Under the current law, the fund is also unable to invest in derivatives to hedge investments, and this should also be reviewed, he said.

GPIF’s average annual payout in fees to domestic stock managers over the past three years was about 6 billion yen, it said.

Hiromichi Mizuno is obviously a bright guy who is responsible for a mammoth, political and arcane global pension giant that desperately needs to revamp its governance, investment policy and the way it invests in public and private markets.

I recently covered why Japan’s pension whale got harpooned in Q3 2015 as global stocks sold off and how it’s looking to diversify into infrastructure. Mizuno has his work cut out for him and I suggest he takes a trip to Toronto to meet up with Ontario Teachers’ new CIO, Bjarne Graven Larsen, to discuss his investment strategy and the approach he wants to take.

And I don’t blame Mizuno for being sick of outsourcing investments and think it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to pay fees for things that can easily be done in-house at a fraction of the cost. Canada’s large pension funds figured this out a long time ago and now they manage a huge portion of their assets in-house (some more than others).

What other advice do I have for Mr. Mizuno? Beware of hedge funds and private equity funds looking for a nice handout from GPIF so they can gather ever more assets and charge you huge fees. If you decide to invest in hedge funds or private equity funds, make sure you get the right alignment of interests and use your giant size to squeeze them hard on fees.

Trust me, they will bend over backwards for you but before you invest in external managers, make sure you think very carefully of what you want to outsource and what you want to bring in-house.

But I have to tell you,  I got very nervous when I read a Bloomberg article from last October, World’s Biggest Pension Fund Is Moving Into Junk and Emerging Bonds. Apart from the terrible timing, GPIF is going to be doling out huge fees to these external active and passive bond investors, many of which will underperform in this environment, and those fees can be used to hire people to manage these investments in-house (at a fraction of the cost).

The problem for GPIF is it’s too big, too slow and too political. External managers around the world are all salivating at the prospect of milking it dry. It desperately needs to reform its governance which it’s finally slowly doing.

Another problem for Mr. Mizuno is my Outlook 2016 on the global deflation tsunami. I suggest he and everyone else paying huge fees to external managers read it very carefully. I don’t envy any CIO at a large pension or sovereign wealth fund in this environment but if Mr. Mizuno is looking for help, I can provide him with four or five names of people in Canada with great experience that can help him structure his investment approach so he can better weather the storm ahead (just contact me at LKolivakis@gmail.com).

 

Photo by www.SeniorLiving.Org via Flickr CC License

Several observers wondered on Tuesday whether retirement would have a place in President Obama’s final State of the Union address.

Turns out, retirement-related topics got a solid 4 minutes of time during the speech [see the above video].

Most notable was Obama’s call for retirement savings to be portable.

Obama’s remarks:

Of course, a great education isn’t all we need in this new economy. We also need benefits and protections that provide a basic measure of security. After all, it’s not much of a stretch to say that some of the only people in America who are going to work the same job, in the same place, with a health and retirement package, for 30 years, are sitting in this chamber. For everyone else, especially folks in their forties and fifties, saving for retirement or bouncing back from job loss has gotten a lot tougher. Americans understand that at some point in their careers, they may have to retool and retrain. But they shouldn’t lose what they’ve already worked so hard to build.

[…]For Americans short of retirement, basic benefits should be just as mobile as everything else is today. Say a hardworking American loses his job – we shouldn’t just make sure he can get unemployment insurance; we should make sure that program encourages him to retrain for a business that’s ready to hire him. If that new job doesn’t pay as much, there should be a system of wage insurance in place so that he can still pay his bills. And even if he’s going from job to job, he should still be able to save for retirement and take his savings with him.

Read the full transcript here.

 

Photo by  Bob Jagendorf via Flickr CC License

In September, Canada’s largest pension fund, the Pension Plan Investment Board, announced plans to open an office in India and to invest $6 billion in the country by 2022.

Now, the second largest Canadian pension fund is following suit: Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, says it is making plans to open an India office and make direct investments in the country.

More from the Business-Standard:

CDPQ, which manages $240 billion of depositors’ money, has already hired some executives and is looking for properties, the executive said.

“As a large investor in major financial markets, private equity, infrastructure and real estate, globally, they could look at similar investments here,” said the [pension fund] executive.

Incidentally, CDPQ’s real estate arm Ivanhoe Cambridge entered India in 2007 shut its office in 2011 and CDPQ’s PE arm SITQ also shelved its plans to invest in Indian real estate as it could not find right opportunities,

Set up in 1965, the CDPQ is one of the largest institutional fund managers in Canada and North America. The leading private equity investor in Canada, it is also one of the 10 largest real estate asset managers in the world.

A mail sent to CDPQ did not elicit any response.

For its part, CPPIB has invested at least $1.2 billion in India since 2010.

 

Photo credit: “Asia Globe NASA”. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons