By Bailey McCann Source: Pensions & Investments Institutional investors have focused on ESG for many years, but the industry may be reaching a tipping point in terms of the specificity and sophistication of ESG mandates. Against a backdrop of increasingly hard to ignore climate risks and social unrest brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, the death of George Floyd and the war in Ukraine, institutions are moving away from passive exclusion strategies and leveraging new data to engage with [...]

By Justin Held Source: IFEBP According to the most recent data from The Multiemployer Retirement Plan Landscape: A Fifteen-Year Look (2004-2018), demographic trends in multiemployer plans have become less favorable as the number of actively working participants have decreased relative to the number of inactive and retired participants. However, plan trustees have made difficult decisions to improve plan funding, and financial markets have recovered somewhat from the 2008 collapse. Due to these actions, the majority of multiemployer defined benefit [...]

Source: National Institute on Retirement Security A new analysis finds that defined benefit (DB) pension plans offer substantial cost advantages over 401(k)-style defined contribution (DC) accounts. A typical pension has a 49 percent cost advantage as compared to a typical DC account, with the cost advantages stemming from longevity risk pooling, higher investment returns, and optimally balanced investment portfolios. The analysis also indicates that about four-fifths of the cost difference occurs during post-retirement years. Once retired, individuals typically experience [...]