pension funds


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Even UK unions might welcome London councils’ joint pension fund

LONDON | A proposed London Pensions Mutual would attempt to square the circle of austere consolidation and need for growth. The mega-pension fund could have assets in excess of £30 billion. It could also allocate up to 7.5% or £2.25 billion of its portfolio towards local infrastructure projects, taking advantage of changes announced by the coalition government in Downing Street to facilitate private investors’ and pension funds’ participation in UK infrastructure…


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Monday’s graphic: 10-year Spain’s bond vs 532 pension funds

MADRID | Pablo Fernández, Javier Aguirreamalloa, Luis Corres Avendaño | In the period between December 2001 and December 2011, returns on the IBEX 35 were at 4.3% while government 10-year bonds’ were at 5.13%. Among the 532 pension funds with 10-year history, only two funds exceeded the return on 10-year sovereign bonds and only three funds exceeded the 4% return. Even worse, 191 funds had negative average return (in December 2011 these funds had 1.7 million participants and assets of €6.246 billion). A reasonable enough question, then: is the favourable fiscal discrimination…