All 36 entries tagged Pensions

A question for the USS executive

Dennis Leech : 29 Nov 2018 00:03 |  Tags: Pensions Uss; |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Too much money: It’s time to push back on DB deficits

Writing about web page https://secure.mallowstreet.com/Article/b33077

Here is the article that I linked to on twitter. It is behind a paywall which means most people could not read it, so I am posting it here. I have included the comments as well because they add something to the argument.

It is interesting in calling for reform of the way pension schemes are managed, especially regarding things like derisking. It is also calling for the DWP to take the matter on board and to act. The author, Robin Ellison, is a very much respected authority on pensions and what he says carries a lot of weight.

Too much money: It’s time to push back on DB deficits by Robin Ellison

For reasons which are probably obvious on the inside but seem impenetrable on the outside, the Pension Protection Fund continues to publish monthly stats on the collective deficits of UK defined benefit plans.

These numbers can fluctuate around £50bn in a month, which suggests that over 60 years any worries about collective UK private sector DB deficits are so volatile as to make publication of the numbers somewhat meaningless.

This over-statisticalisation of the system seems even less useful when looking at other studies which have been published in recent weeks. First Actuarial publish a frequent survey called FAB (First Actuarial Best Estimate Index), which suggests that at the end of April 2018, there was a collective surplus of £308bn and a funding ratio of around 125% on a best estimate basis.

The PPF itself, using a system in the course of refinement, suggests that schemes are collectively funded to around 95% on a s179 basis.

LCP coincidentally published their annual Accounting for Pensions survey in April, which showed that the FTSE 100 companies had a collective surplus (on an IAS 19 basis).

And even the defensive and increasingly aggressive Pensions Regulator has several times argued that the national funding issues for DB schemes were nothing to worry about – saying the system is in good shape.

Return to surpluses is possible

Of course, not much of this gets reported. But UK companies have been pumping funds into schemes over the past 10 years, and as interest rates stutteringly begin to firm, there emerges a non-remote possibility of a return to surpluses.

The question then will be posed by regulators, select committees and financial commentators as to what on earth we were doing to allow such a waste of capital to develop.

These counter-productive funding rules have impacted on British industry.

But not only has it resulted in over-provision; it has been coupled with a destructive ‘defensive investment’ strategy, investing through fixed income – especially index-linked and ordinary gilts – which will inevitably take a hit.

This policy has deprived many members of schemes from enjoying their expected pensions, and shareholders of their proper returns – all because of self-interested and counter-productive regulation and policy.

Time for the IFoA and PLSA to act

It is not too late. We now need to explain rather more forcefully than we have done so far, just what a fantastic job pension scheme trustees and their sponsors have done, despite the regulatory headwinds.

And it is time for (1) the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries to rethink just what is meant by derisking and (2) the PLSA to push back against TPR investment nostrums to try and live in what remains of the 21st century.

Because if we don’t, once the government has found post-Brexit time in its legislative timetable, we might regret not pushing back against the overzealous demands of the white paper as amended by the DWP select committee.

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Pauline Armitage•19 June 2018 at 13:08

Excellent. No one listened last century so I doubt they'll heed the message now...but then there are 88 years to go so maybe.

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Peter Woolsey•19 June 2018 at 13:35

At last someone with lengthy experience, and who knows probably more about the issues than anyone else, has bravely come out to challenge the establishment view and TPR on both deficits and funding principles. DB schemes last for generations (if allowed to do so!) and so funding and investment strategies must be based accordingly. De-risking merely demands more and more contributions from sponsors that quite possibly will not be required in the long term. There is potentially the danger that members' prospects of benefits at retirement will actually be harmed because of this. In the past, when investment was mainly in equity type vehicles, surpluses built up which would have served to guard against bad times; but Government got worried about the cost in tax relief and put a ceiling on funding levels. It's not surprising we got to the current position following this because all the good work in the past was undone by poor Government decision-making. It should be remembered that valuations are just a snapshot of a situation at a particular point in time.

Martin Veasey•19 June 2018 at 15:04

Unless the covenant is in peril and there is a clear TP deficit, then it isn't a problem that a scheme is underfunded on a risk-free (or close to) basis - the liabilities aren't due today so why should one expect to have all the corresponding assets today? Yes, we should use this as a basis for longer term planning / aspiration but it's not a general emergency for the industry.Media reporting seems to promote the view that this is an immediate solvency metric and a general measure of health in the DB marketplace, both of which thoughts I disagree.

Dennis Leech : 20 Jun 2018 14:12 |  Tags: Pensions |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Being actuarial with the truth

(This blog post is for those who are interested in the technical aspects of the actuarial valuation. It shows that the criticisms of the valuation methodology many of us are making are well founded and supported by rigorous intellectual foundations.)

One of the best articles on pension valuation is this paper by Simon Carne that he presented to the actuarial profession in 2004, called "Being Actuarial with the Truth".

It is directly relevant to the controversy about how pension schemes are valued (for example see here) and especially the present USS issue. He shows the problems with attempting to value liabilities separately from assets and that the best way to value a scheme is to compare projected cash flows of income and outgo. The issue of the choice of discount rate then fades into the background.

There seems little reason not to follow his advice to form an overall view for practical management purposes alongside the regualtory requirements.

The paper also deals forthrightly with John Ralfe who is a very vocal critic of reported pension deficits. It shows that his analysis is fundamentally flawed. It is remarkable that he is still saying the same things - and getting media attention - today despite his arguments having been comprehensively rebutted in 2004!

Dennis Leech : 02 May 2018 13:27 |  Tags: Pensions Uss; |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

USS Directors and their Remuneration

Many members are asking about the key decision makers who run the pension scheme. The trustee body comprises 12 directors, four appointed by the UUK, three appointed by UCU and five independents appointed by the board.

They are identified in the Annual Report and Accounts for 2017 p55 (pdf downloadable from here).

Their remuneration is set out in the table below. The UCU rules require that their appointed directors do not benefit financially and directors donate their fees to charity.

The remuneration of the USS Executive, the men who are in charge of day-to-day running of the fund and the pension scheme is not revealed individually. But their salaries are within this table.

Dennis Leech : 30 Apr 2018 00:57 |  Tags: Pensions Uss; |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Very misleading THE article comparing DB with DC pensions

An article about the USS pensions dispute in the Times Higher Education by David Voas (Let's defend pensions not defined benefits) gives a somewhat inaccurate account of the issue. It also makes a comparison between Defined Benefit and Defined Contribution pensions that is very misleading.

At the centre of the issue between the union and the employers is what kind of scheme it is. The employers want to end the guaranteed pension that is based on years of service and earnings, and replace it with a defined contribution arrangement where instead of a pension on retirement one gets a pot of money that depends only on what has been paid in and investment returns.

The article argues compares a young person aged 30 near the start of their career with someone nearing retirement, and concludes that the youngster would do a lot better under Defined Contribution. This is very misleading. For most people (almost all in fact) they would get a lot better penson in retirement from a Defined Benefit scheme.

The article actually makes a number of statements that are wide of the mark. And it is not sufficiently analytical.

For example it says, "defined benefit schemes are defunct unless underwritten by the taxpayer." That is not really true. There are schemes in the private sector that are not defunct. And there is no reason why the USS should be defunct without taxpayer support. The problem is with the way the regulations are being applied and the weakness of the employers. While it is true that most of the DB pensions schemes are in the public sector, such as the Teachers Pension Scheme that is normal in the post-92 universities, what Voas is getting at, I think, is a repetition of City group think that applies simplistic generalities.

His description of the problem, though, goes from vagueness to missing the whole point. He writes,"The problem is twofold. Employers struggle to afford the cost of guaranteeing that the benefits promised in 50 years' time will be paid ... Employees are also hit, though, because everyone ends up paying above the odds." (emphasis added) What does this mean? It sounds very bad. It is not factually true. There is no conclusive evidence that employers struggle to pay the pensions in 50 years. All that is required is that the scheme stays open until then and invests in high return assets such as company shares (equities).

The next paragraph is an explaination but is in fact a gross oversimplification to the point of being misleading, revealing that Voas has not understood the arguments: "The basic equation is simple enough: contributions plus investment income equals benefits. Contributions - and even benefits - are fairly predictable, albeit affected by changes in life expectancy. The challenge is to estimate real returns on investment over several decades."

That is not where the problem lies. There would actually be no problem if it were as Voas says. The USS investment portfolio has a high return, an average of 12 percent per year over the past five years, for example, and is expected to continue to do well into the future, since it is skewed towards equities.

The problem is that the liabilities (present value of future benefits) are being valued counterfactually. That is, NOT using the real returns on investments as described. If things were as Voas says, there would not likely be a problem. The problem is that the scheme is being told to assume very poor returns - index linked gilts have a negative return. So the problem is a result of the excessive prudence being forced on the scheme by the regulations and the weakness of the support from the employers.

In order to compare DB with DC, he contrasts two academics with the same salary, a woman aged 30 with an older man nearing retirement. They both receive a defined benefit of 1/75 of salary for a year's work. He claims that for the older man it is a windfall: "he receives substantilly more than his current contribution would support. For the 30 year old it is very poor value. She could conservatively expect her contributions to grow by 2 per cent per annum, thereby doubling her money by age 65. This fund would be worth more than the defined benefits." This is very difficult to make sense of. Why compare these two individuals in this way, by just taking a snapshot of one year. What pension would the young woman get when she retires? How would that compare with the man? Surely what is needed is to compare the pensions obtainable from DB and DC over a whole career, not just one year taken at different stages in life. It is also very superficial. We are not told if the returns are after inflation. All defined benefits are uprated for inflation by the CPI.

And so it goes on. It reads as if the article were simply intended to make the case for DC over DB. But that goes against all the evidence from academic studies and practical knowledge from actuaries. It also goes against the studies that have been done for the UCU by its actuarial advisers, which show that for the great majority of members, it is very considerably more expensive to provide a pension of a given annual amount by DC. Estimates have put this at between 40 percent and 100 percent more.

This piece is extremely poor scholarship.

Dennis Leech : 07 Apr 2018 19:22 |  Tags: Pensions Uss; |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Reply to Sally Hunt

Writing about web page https://www.ftadviser.com/pensions/2018/03/15/why-pensions-are-worth-striking-over/?page=1

This is my response to what Sally Hunt, the General Secretary of the University and College Union, has written about the latest develpments in the USS dispute on the FTAdviser website.

What is puzzling is why the union has asked for the employers to increase their contributions, and agreed that members should pay more, when the key issue is the valuation methodology which points in the opposite direction. The union committed a strategic error when it did this. It is to be hoped that it can retrieve itself from it.

Fundamentally the dispute centres on the strength of the employer covenant: that is, the member institutions’ ability and willingness to support the scheme. Because the employers can collectively stand behind the scheme indefinitely, due to its “last-man-standing” structure, the covenant is patently strong. The UCU should not compromise on this point in any way.

This means that the USS can remain open to new members and accrual indefinitely and put its spare funds into investments that will make a high return over the long term. Remember that the scheme makes a large surplus every year - almost £1 billion - and this is what it has been doing very successfully for many years. Forecasts of income and outgo, going well into the distant future, that have been made by the UCU actuary, have shown that continuing with this strategy can provide the pension benefits promised to members. On this basis, there is not a large so-called deficit. There is probably a surplus – for example as is indicated by the Best Estimate valuation in the September USS consultation document.

The problem is that the different valuation methodology being insisted on by the employers (and the USS executive) contains a sleight of hand that makes it seem like there is a large deficit. They use circular reasoning that contains a serious inconsistency. The negotiations and industrial action should have been - and should still be - directed at this, in effect, big lie.

We know that the design of the scheme is 'last-man-standing' where all the institutional members support one another against the prospect of individual institutions being unable to support the scheme. The bankruptcy of one university, for example, leaves all its member staff’s pensions entitlements unaffected. This is obviously a very strong covenant because simultaneous bankruptcy is not a plausible eventuality given that all the pre-92 universities are well established institutions of great public benefit and always will continue to be so collectively, even allowing for some reorganization, such as mergers and closures of some institutions.

But if, on the other hand, we consider a scheme for employees of – let us say – a private company that operates in a risky market place, there could only be a very weak covenant. There would be a lot of risk. The scheme’s portfolio investments would need to be in low risk assets such as bonds in order for the scheme to be able to pay the pensions in the not unlikely event that the business eventually closes. This means more cash must be provided to pay the benefits, and the liabilities, must be very much higher than if the covenant is strong.

Therefore it is clear that an assessment of the covenant should be based on an objective appraisal of the likelihood of the scheme closing, independently of the pensions liabilities. Having a high pension liability is not in itself an argument for saying the covenant is weak. That would be circular reasoning because the estimate of the liabilities depends on the strength of the covenant.

Yet that is precisely what the UUK employers and the USS executive (and even the pensions regulator) are doing. They all base their covenant assessment on a hypothetical view of the ability of the sector to support the scheme in financial terms. This puts the cart before the horse because their liabilities estimate assumes there to be a high risk of failure – a weak covenant in the first place. They are using circular reasoning and have slipped in the conclusion they appear to wish to arrive at: that the scheme is too risky to be sustainable.

The UCU negotiators should point this out. And they should not accept these arguments that show the covenant to be weak based on an implicit assumption that it is weak in the first place.

Best Estimate valuation

As an aside, we are told that the Best Estimate valuation can’t be used because it will be correct only 50 percent of the time, therefore as likely to be wrong as right. This is both wrong and irrelevant. Where the employer covenant is strong, the scheme trustees need not worry about short-term volatility of its investment portfolio, and can invest in high-return assets for long term income. The liabilities should be estimated using the Best Estimate of the portfolio return, with a suitable margin for proper prudence, of course.

What is an Independent Review?

Finally, there is the question of the proposed panel of independent experts. It is a very unwise move for the union to agree to this. Not only does it beg a number of questions about the composition of, and procedures to be followed by, this group, it also says that the union has little confidence in the case it is putting forward.

How will the members of this group of experts from academia and the pensions industry be selected? There are very many senior academics who are expert in accounting and finance who do not question the received industry norms of what are often called generally accepted principles. There are even Nobel prizewinning economists among them. Yet it is precisely such principles that we must challenge. The UCU policy is in fact to argue against the application of the conventional valuation of pension schemes used by company accountants.

Many if not most actuaries have been persuaded that they should employ the tools of modern finance theory such as the efficient markets hypothesis. Such is evident from some of the statements by the pension regulator and the USS Executive, also many actuaries. Would we expect an independent expert to agree with or criticize this kind of analysis? The actuarial profession was told a few years ago, in several reports, that they ought to use ‘modern finance theory’. They have taken this advice to heart. Yet this is precisely where the problem lies, and to call for the whole matter to be delegated to an independent panel of experts is to back away from dealing with the issue.

Then there is the question of how the expert body will be constituted. Will it include members who have expressed views in the debate already, or does the word independent preclude them? Will it meet in public? Will its deliberations be open to scrutiny? Will its membership be limited in number? In other words, will this independent group be subject to the normal modalities of academic enquiry and discourse? It is after all the function of academia to find out the truth by open, free debate. That is what universities are for.

Dennis Leech : 16 Mar 2018 11:01 |  Tags: Pensions Uss; |  Comments (3) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

USS valuation: don't believe all you read in the press. USS is in good shape

The reports that have appeared in the press that the USS is in deficit of so many billions of pounds (Times Higher, Financial Times) are very one-sded and misleading - not least because the precise figure seems to change massively each time it is quoted. The latest valuation - actually dated 31 March 2017 - is in progress. The scheme's trustees are currently consulting the university employers about the approach they are following.

The document laying out the assumptions and the questions the universities are being asked has been made available to members if they request it. Members should ask their employer. It has also been published on its website by Sheffield University, and can be downloaded from here.

The calculations that have led to the conclusions reported in the press are based on a very particular view and approach the USS executive want to follow. This is the belief - handed down by generations of actuaries - that pension schemes should invest their funds primarily in government bonds (aka gilts), on the principle that such investments are totally safe, whereas equities are somewhat risky.

The problem with following this maxim in today's economic conditions is that - as a result of our government's policy of very low interest rates - is that it gives a very poor return, one that is currently below inflation.

In other words following their own orthodoxy is irrational: the principle of investing in low risk gilts is a guarantee of losing money in real terms!!! Yet despite their best efforts the UCU has been unable to get them to question their professional norms, and to consider other assumptions, even if it means the pension scheme having to close to defined benefits as a result.

The document's reference to poor investment returns largely reflects this assumption. Yet returns to investing in growth assets are not too low. For example equities continue to give a dividend yield sufficient to meet the anticipated pension obligations.

At the core of the valuation problem is the so called Test 1 which is somewhat technical but requires university employers to make up for the loss by extra payments. But their capacity to make such additional payments is limited. Hence the threat to the affordability of the scheme. But Test 1 is a very specific methodology whose evidential base is open to question. It assumes the only investments are loss making gilts. It would be good to know how the test would work on the assumption the scheme is invested in the actual assets it has. It is puzzling why this is not done.

The draft valuation assumes implicitly that the scheme must be seen as about to close to new members and always remain invested in low-yielding but secure gilts. But the scheme is open to new members, and serves a sector with strong employers - the pre-92 universities (in other words not the former polytechnics but the older, more famous and well established institutons from Oxbridge via the Red Brick Civics to the New Universities founded in the Sixties) - and therefore can invest for the long term. Because it has done this over many years, the USS has an investment portfolio that is mainly concentrated in growth assets such as equities and few gilts - so the assumptions of the executive are not relevant anyway. These investments do well and make a return sufficient to pay the pensions - as long as the scheme remains open.

The UCU's actuary First Actuarial has just published their response to the USS valuation. This assumes the scheme remains open, continuing indefinitely with the profitable investment portfolio it actually has (rather than loss making gilts). The bottom line is that there is no need to cut pensions benefits or raise contributions:

"We conclude from the cash flow analysis later in this report, that the current contribution rate from the 2014 valuation remains a prudent contribution rate, given the current benefit design of the USS. In a scenario of “best estimate” pay rises, the benefits of the USS can very nearly be paid from contributions, without reliance on the assets. There is no need to change either the contribution rate or the benefits to have a prudent funding plan. The strong likelihood is that the USS can be invested to outperform the return required to safely deliver the benefits. Given time, the outperformance will increase the funding level to any desired target. Any formulation of the sign off of the valuation which maintains the current contribution rate and the current benefits is acceptable."

All USS members interested in what is happening - or likely to happen - to their pension rights ought to read this document.

Dennis Leech : 15 Sep 2017 23:33 |  Tags: Pensions Uss; |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Is the USS really in deficit?

Everybody should keep calm about the universities superannuation scheme. Contrary to sensational press reports last week in the THE, Financial Times and BBC, the USS is not actually in deficit - not in the usual meaning of the word ‘deficit’ anyway.

If it were truly in deficit it would not have enough money coming in to pay its outgoings. It would be forced to sell some of its investment portfolio to keep going. But in reality it has investment income each year in excess of £1 billion which is not needed to pay for pensions today and that is available for new investments. It has just bought a large stake in Thames Water, for example. The scheme is cash rich and can remain so for many years. Membership is increasing with over 29,000 new members joining last year.

What, then is the problem? The headline figures quoted are theoretical numbers based on particular hypothetical assumptions about the future, whose realism is in doubt. Many members, the UCU, some universities and some actuaries are questioning whether they really give a true picture of the health of the scheme.

The ‘deficit’ emerges as the difference between the scheme’s assets (its investment portfolio) and liabilities (the value of future pensions benefits). The press reports are sensational because they quote raw figures baldly without any context. The liabilities are estimated to be £72.6 billion, which, with assets of £60 billion, means a shortfall – the ‘deficit’ – of £12.6 billion.

Reporting figures like that as raw numbers, expressed as billions of pounds, without putting them in context is misleading. (It is reminiscent of the way that government debt and deficit are reported in absolute numbers in order to frighten us into accepting cuts in public spending.) Given the size of the USS, with almost 400,000 members, it is actually not surprising that the figures are so large. They need to be put in proper context before any conclusions can be drawn. They represent a funding ratio of 83 percent: the assets are currently worth 83 percent of the liabilities. So is that high or low?

Compared with the funding levels of the almost 6,000 private UK schemes, of which the USS is the largest, it is not out of line. Its funding ratio is fairly typical. The average for schemes in deficit is 83 percent, according to the Pensions Regulator Scheme Funding Statistics 2007. The BT pension scheme funding ratio is 64 percent.

So it is not fair to say, as the FT article claimed, that the USS has the largest gap between assets and liabilities of any scheme in the UK. It is only large because the scheme is very large.

While the USS ‘deficit’ is not out of line with other privately funded schemes, we still need to ask where it comes from in the first place and what it means. The main reason for pension scheme deficits – not just USS – is that the accountants tend to insist on an assumption that schemes be invested only in bonds (even though that may not be true). In this they seem to be following a herd mentality and advocating something which is irrational. Why anyone would believe that investing in gilts at the present record low real interest rates, which entails expecting to make a loss, reduces risk is hard to understand.

But gilt interest rates have really very little to do with the USS pension scheme. After all, the pensions that members will receive are not paid out of the meagre returns from gilts but the much better returns from the long-term investments the scheme actually has, that it has built up over the years, mostly equities and other high-return assets. Such assets – if held for the long term - yield a high return with minimal risk.

[The USS uses this best estimate rate of return to value liabilities but with a substantial – some say excessive – margin of prudence to allow for market volatility of equities and other assets (the technical provisions). However they update this figure regularly using gilt rates, and it is this that appears in the accounts.]

The report also gives an alternative figure for the deficit if liabilities are valued using the actual rate of return from its assets but without the large dollop of prudence. This ‘best estimate‘ for the liabilities figure (as at 31 March 2014) was £38.1 billion, which means the scheme would have been in SURPLUS by £3.5 billion! Of course the necessary degree of prudence needs to be applied here, but it does show that this is not a scheme that is in trouble. We are due another triennial valuation in the next months (with a reference date of 31 March 2017) and it seems likely that the best estimate valuation could well have improved.

Members should stay calm and insist that the scheme remain open to new members and accrual. The biggest threat to the scheme is closing it.

Dennis Leech : 11 Aug 2017 01:41 |  Tags: Pensions Uss; |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Misleading Times article about pension deficits

An article in last Saturday's Times, 'Universities' pension scheme could face their most rigorous examination' is an object lesson in the poor standard of reporting on pensions. Its author, Philip Aldrick, is the paper's Economics Editor, yet he displays a poor understanding of the underlying issues he is reporting which leads him to mislead the reader.

He is telling us about the large deficit that is being forecast to emerge from the next valuation of the USS, the private pension scheme that covers staff of the older universities, what are known as the pre-92 universities. The newer institutions, mainly the former polytechnics, are covered by the teachers' pension scheme, guaranteed by the taxpayer. But the USS is private so it comes under the same regulations as company pension schemes, such as the BHS.

But there the comparison ends. Questions are being asked in parliament about where the BHS pensioners' money has gone: there are some fairly simple and obvious question marks surrounding the role of the former owner of BHS, Sir Philip Green.

The USS deficit is not like that in that it is not clear where the deficiency is or how it has arisen. We cannot blame anyone for taking too much money out. We are told that at the last valuation in 2014 there was a deficit of £5.3 billion and that a recovery plan was agreed involving cuts to benefits and increases in contributions which were designed to fill the gap. Yet only a year later the deficit had become £8.2 billion. And it is estimated that by the next valuation in 2017 it will have ballooned to £11 billion.

These changes have taken place with nothing substantial changing in the actual scheme itself: there has been no Robert Maxwell raiding the pensions pots of his employees, no university finance officers indulging in creative accounting, no sudden mass retirement of thousands of senior professors on high final-salary-linked pensions, no sharp drop in recruitment. On the contrary changes in pension scheme deficits on the scale reported would only normally be expected to occur over perhaps a decade or longer, not a period of months. And they would be explained in terms of tangible factors such as increased longevity. But forecast longevity does not increase in big sudden jumps on the scale needed to explain these deficits.

No. These big swings in the deficit are almost entirely artificial. They are due to the regulation rules which have an inbuilt bias towards finding a deficit. This is is a problem that affects all defined benefit schemes: USS is merely the largest and therefore the effects are greater.

Many of the pension deficits stem from a major mistake by the government in basing regulation on what is called ‘modern finance theory’ or ‘financial economics’. Pension schemes have to be valued in terms of assets and liabilities, which are categories of capital, when what actually matters is whether the flow of income is enough to pay the benefits into the future. Capital values and income flows are two completely different things. It does not matter what the prices of the scheme’s investments in shares are on a particular valuation date; what we want to know is how much income those shares are likely to bring while they are held in the portfolio.

Theory teaches us that the capital value of an asset is the discounted present value of the expected net income received by its owner. That theory is the basis of valuation required by the pensions regulator. But we should not listen to that theory because it does not hold in practice. In reality share prices are highly volatile, far more so than the economics supposed to underly them. The asset valuations are far more volatile than the dividend and other income as a result of natural speculation in the stock market and other reasons like sentiment, 'irrational exuberance', and so on. There is massive evidence on this. There is a wealth of literature showing that excess volatility exists and that it is large; some studies have found it to be an order of magnitude greater than the volatility attributable to underlying economic events.

Yet the legislation on valuation of pension scheme assets requires it to be done in line with finance theory: by pricing to market and taking the ensuing volatility as risk and therefore something important to be managed. If anyone points out that there is excess volatility in the real world, it is dismissed as a merely a 'puzzle'.

The liabilities, too, have to be estimated in a way that makes it possible to compare a figure for them with the assets. (This is where the 'complicated mathematics' of the article comes in: Mr Aldrick reveals he is not well-up on pensions economics when he sneers at this.) The liabilities figure is an even stranger concept than the assets. And this is where most misunderstanding comes from. Most journalists do not understand how artificial and divorced from reality the liabilities figure is.

Under the rules the trustees of a scheme have to work out a hypothetical capital sum that - if it were invested in a certain way - would produce the assumed future benefits. The regulations actually allow for quite a lot of discretion in how this is done but most actuaries have got the idea from finance theory that investing in gilts is risk free. The problem with this is that gilt rates are very low at present so this means liabilities are very high. And as gilt rates change by a small amount the liabilities change massively by billions. (It is not a risk-free rate if it is constantly changing.) Yet the real liabilities are the benefits that have to be paid in the future and have not changed, they are just the same. Once again it is theory in the face of evidence: real pension schemes do not invest in gilts but in assets that will give a high return, in a prudently diversified portfolio.

The third major factor is the employer covenant. When USS was set up it was backed by the government. Any deficits could be made up by changes to the grant. The UGC (later HEFC) had a seat on the Board. So institutions did not have to worry about risk of the scheme failing. But the government (Willetts I assume) withdrew in 2011 and the scheme, as the article says, is a last-man-standing scheme. This seems to be exercising the minds of some of the employers worried about taking on the liabilities for institutions that fail in the new competitive environment where we are being under-cut by cheap new entrants. So the valuation - I believe - currently assumes only a twenty year covenant: to be on the safe side universities are assumed not to contribute beyond that. How likely is it that institutional members of the USS - the pre-92 universities mainly - will go bust.

Members are having to contribute more and more to the scheme, and benefits are being cut, in order to manage a lot of synthetic risk in the form of market volatility which is not the same as actual risk. On top of that they are having to pay to manage the risk of institutional bankruptcy.

Mr Aldrick finishes with an extraordinary comment: "The big hope is that interest rates rise which, through complicated mathematics, will reduce the liabilities. If that is the plan, however, it would make Sir Philip look as clean as a whistle. Universities, we'd like to think, measure themselves by a higher standard."

This statement suggests he does not appear to get it. He does not seem to understand that the reason that the liabilities figure is so large is mainly due to low interest rates but instead seems to believe the deficit is real and that the effect of a rise in interest rates 'through complicated mathematics' is somehow an extraneous technicality that might be as morally dubious as the shenanigans at BHS. The fact that interest rates are low is the reason the deficit appears so large.

Dennis Leech : 08 May 2016 03:42 |  Tags: Pensions Uss; |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

USS attacks 'mark to market' accounting rules

The USS has criticised the government-imposed accounting rules for pension schemes. Kathryn Graham, USS’s head of strategy coordination, has said the current, so-called 'mark-to-market', rules prevent funds like the USS from investing in long-term infrastructure projects. This both limits pension schemes' investment opportunities and also harms the wider economy by discouraging much needed long-term investment.

She argues that pension funds in other countries such as Canada and Australia, that use different accounting rules that allow for smoothing, give them an advantage so that they are invested in much more long-term infrastructure.

This is of course an effect of the 'contested methodology' that the UCU has complained about. 'Mark-to-market' accounting is the major reason behind the so-called deficit and the justification for the closure of the final salary scheme and introduction of the hybrid scheme.

Graham made her remarks at an investment conference and was supported by other pension schemes. The coal industry scheme's representative said that "mark-to-market was forcing pension funds to buy UK Gilts, instead of other assets, unnecessarily" which, as members who have been following the recent debate about its future will know, is precisely what is happening to USS.

There is a clear implication that what is needed is for the rules and the 2005 legislation to be looked at again as not fit for purpose. The appointment Ros Altmann as the new minister could be an opportunity to do that. Her approach to pensions is measured and pragmatic, whereas her predecessor, Steve Webb, also a pensions expert, was an Orange Book Liberal, who seemed to have an unquestioning faith in the omniptence of markets. Ros Altmann has written about the USS saying that the deficit is overblown. On the other hand, Steve Webb has defended the mark-to-market methdology maintaining that pension scheme deficits it throws up are 'real'.

It is time the rules and methodology were looked at again before all DB pension schemes have been closed down as a result of ill-though-out legislation and regulation, and not least for the sake of combatting the short-termism of British investment.

Dennis Leech : 05 Jun 2015 17:34 |  Tags: Pensions Uss; |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem