TEXPERS Hosts Educational Webinar

Pension Industry Thought Leaders Discuss Outsourced CIO Relationships During Online Moderated Event

Image by Alexandra_Koch from Pixabay 

TEXPERS Staff Report

What are the general duties of pension plan consultants and outsourced chief investment officers? TEXPERS gathered industry thought leaders for an educational webinar to give the trustees and administrators of TEXPERS' Member Systems advice on what pension plans should do to take stock of their funds' advisory relationships.

During the webinar, held Sept. 15, a moderator used a question-and-answer format allowing the panelists to identify some of the differences between non-discretionary and discretionary advisory models.

Click here to view a recording of the webinar. Those wanting to watch the video will be required to register for access.

During the session, the panel:

• Outlined some decision point considerations for plan trustees.
• Illustrated some of the more nuanced differences between the services.
• Revealed what the economic and market upheaval brought by the novel coronavirus pandemic has taught.
• Took audience questions relating to advisory relationships and the markets in general.

Mark Weir, from Maples Group, moderated the webinar. The expert panelists were Jim Link, from PFM; Chris McGoldrick, from PNC; and Robert Longfield, from CBIZ.

Future Webinars

TEXPERS is hosting educational webinars to help in the professional development of its Member Systems' trustees and administrators. Additional webinars are being planned.

The next webinar, Direct Lending – The Benefits of Scale and Differentiated Sourcing, will be held at 10 a.m. CDT on Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2020.

Synopsis: Since the Global Financial Crisis, investors globally continue in their search for yield, shifting capital from public to private markets, with private debt emerging as an attractive asset class for institutional investors seeking an illiquidity yield premium.

With the private debt market currently estimated to be ~$850 billion and likely to grow, in this webinar, Michael Patterson, Governing Partner and Portfolio Manager of Direct Lending Strategies at HPS Partners, will share insights on how best to extract attractive risk-adjusted returns through differentiated sourcing capabilities.

Topics will include:

• Non-sponsor lending: not just sourcing, it’s about execution.
• Utilizing scale as a competitive advantage.
• Opportunities to find excess returns persist at the larger end of the lending market.

Click here to register.

For an up to date listing of webinars, click here to visit TEXPERS Online Education link on the association’s website.

Earn Continuing Education Credits

New and Continuing pension system trustees and administrators who attended live webinars can earn one credit hour to satisfy state-mandated Continuing Education. To earn the credit, attendees are required to sit through the entire presentation, participate in polling questions during the session, and answer a survey emailed to attendees after the webinar. Those who do not sit through the webinar are unable to earn credit.

For additional information, email texpers@texpers.org or visit our website. Also, be sure to follow TEXPERS on Facebook and Twitter.

New report sheds light on retirement security and financial decision making

Photo: Karolina Grabowska from Pexels.

TEXPERS STAFF REPORT

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued a new report, Retirement Security and Financial Decision Making, that finds a growing number of retirees are not experiencing the expected gradual reduction in spending after they retire.

The report, published by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, finds that nearly half of Americans who retired between 1992 and 2014 were unable to keep the same spending level for five years following retirement. The Bureau’s findings indicate that certain financial decisions may enhance or diminish retirees’ ability to maintain the same level of spending, according to an email from NIRS announcing the webinar. For example, for homeowners, entering retirement without mortgage debt, for those with a pension, choosing a monthly annuity rather than in a lump-sum payout, are positively associated with retirees’ ability to maintain the same spending level for five years.

The study helps identify ways to protect retirees from overspending their savings in early retirement.

> REPORT:  Access a copy of the research brief.

Key Findings

• The study found that about half of people who retired between 1992 and 2014 had income, savings, and/or non-housing assets to maintain the same spending level for five consecutive years after retiring.  
• Bureau found that the ability to maintain the same spending level in the first five years in retirement was associated with large spending cuts in later years. 

The Consumer Protection Bureau is a federal agency responsible for consumer protection in the financial sector.

TEXPERS' 2017 Summer Forum will be held Aug. 13-15 in San Antonio, Texas. Register today: www.texpers.org.