Two of the UK’s largest pension schemes will vote against the renewal of top directors at BP Plc (BP.L) and Shell Plc (SHEL.L) at their annual meetings unless both companies strengthen commitments to tackling carbon emissions, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. The plan by Britain’s Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) and Borders to Coast, which…
Category: pension funds
US Senate/Congressional Letter Condemning DOL/EBSA Proposal On Proxy Voting by ERISA Fiduciaries
Twenty U.S. Senators and Members of Congress, including Elizabeth Warren, Dick Durbin, Tammy Baldwin, Patty Murray, Bernie Sanders, and Sherrod Brown, and Maxine Waters have sent a very strong comment letter to EBSA/DOL criticizing the proposal on proxy voting by ERISA fiduciaries in the strongest terms. The full letter is below. An excerpt: The proposal…
VEA Comment to DOL/EBSA on Proxy Voting
October 2, 2020 Jeanne Klinefelter Wilson Acting Assistant Secretary Employee Benefits Security Administration United States Department of Labor 200 Constitution Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20210 RE: RIN 1210-AB91 Dear Acting Assistant Secretary Wilson, In the long, dismaying history of regulatory capture, when agencies set up to provide oversight instead issue rules entrenching and subsidizing corporate insiders,…
VEA Vice Chair Quoted on Despicable DOL/EBSA Proposal Limiting Proxy Voting Financial Times
Trump administration targets ESG. (Yet) again. The US Department of Labor has taken another swipe at ESG investments by moving to make it more difficult for retirement plan fiduciaries to vote on shareholder proposals that are not explicitly linked to company performance. With the proposed rule released on Monday, the DoL (led by Eugene Scalia)…
Work and Pensions Committee to examine impact of pension freedoms and protecting pension savers – News from Parliament – UK Parliament
We have been skeptical and critical of the shift from defined benefit to defined contribution pension plans. The entire idea of pension plans was to protect the retirement income security of working people by having their savings managed by expert professionals subject to the highest requirements of diligence and loyalty. What has been characterized as…
Federal Workers Profit From Tobacco and Oil, Even If They Don’t Want To – The New York Times
When the Federal Thrift Savings Plan (a sort of 401(k) for federal employees) replaced the defined benefit plan, a big concern was the potential conflicts of federal workers making regulatory and enforcement decisions that might affect portfolio companies. And so the solution was an index fund, where they would own the market as a whole…
Michael W. Frerichs – Illinois State Treasurer: Raising The Bar on Investing
Illinois state treasurer Michael W. Frerichs is one of the most respected public pension fund fiduciaries in the country and we were delighted to see his thoughtful comments on ESG as an essential element in minimizing investment risk. Making Prudent Choices. Investing means making choices. For the investment officers at the Illinois State Treasurer’s Office,…
Pension and Investment News: Best and Worst Systems in the World – Bloomberg
The Netherlands and Denmark have the best pensions systems in the world, according to a global study that shines a light on how nations are preparing aging populations for retirement. The countries took the top two slots in the Melbourne Mercer Global Pensions Index published Monday, both earning an A grade for the level of…
How Pension Funds Can Survive Volatile Markets | Newsmax.com
Former CalPERS trustee Dana Hollinger, writing with Jackson Eisenpresser, tells pension fund managers to begin with making sure they have enough liquidity for their projected payouts, and then think about alpha. Private-market returns have never been more critical in meeting future liabilities. The yield must come from real assets, infrastructure, and private credit and extending…
US government pension fund urged to reverse China investment | Financial Times
Senior US senators are demanding that one of America’s biggest government pension funds reverse a decision that is set to channel billions of US dollars into funding Chinese companies that they say support Beijing’s military, espionage and domestic security efforts.The demand shows how the US-China rivalry, which has thus far focused mainly on trade war…
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