How we pay for the City (& expensive Red Wine)

I recommend that if you have a funded Pension that you listen to this excellent Radio 4 programme "How You Pay for the City".  

Former fund manager David Pitt- Watson pointed out that excessive charges in the UK compared to  Holland means that the average comparable dutch pension will be 50% more than you would get in the UK.

While the incomparable Mr Colin Meech, UNISON National Officer for Capital Stewardship, thinks that the Local Government Pension Scheme is just being ripped off. He recounted how a colleague who became a fiduciary trustee on a large scheme was shocked to find that the trustee board spent more time being wined (at £100 per bottle!) and dined by fund managers than they spent supervising the scheme. I have heard the same story from that colleague.

It is not just excessive fees by fund managers but also "churn" (excessive buying and selling of stock); stock lending (they lend out your share certificates for a fee), "Custody Banks" (if something is too good to be true...) and "transitional management" (there is a completely shocking story how the Royal Mail Pension fund was cheated and how a judge was told that an untruth was not a lie)

By coincidence we heard similar arguments at the AMNT Summer Conference from Michael Johnson that I posted upon yesterday.

Dr Hari Mann: RSA Tomorrow's Investor programme

Dr Mann was the first speaker at last weeks meeting of the Association of Member Nominated Trustees (AMNT).

He spoke about the 4 year research programme into investments by the Royal Society Arts/Tomorrow's Investor Programme. He and co-author David Pitt-Watson published this report in July on Collective Pensions. 

His key theme was the high cost of many defined contribution pension schemes and the lack of transparency over charges. He prefers the Danish model where you find clear cost transparency which allows market forces to work effectively and drive down charges. In the UK the pension annual management charge does not include all costs. Some schemes charge up to 5% of contributions.

 

While it is clear that due to cost well designed Collective DC schemes are far better than individual DC. They are still clearly inferior than Defined Benefit schemes and always will, be since the risk in all forms of DC, remains with the employees. Also the return from pension annuities is so miserable that you need to save huge amounts in order to receive a decent income from DC.

 

Surely there is no getting away from it that it is better to retain (and reform when necessary) DB schemes? The real problem with DB is not that it is unaffordable but that of outdated accounting standards and the resulting volatility in valuations?