Chris Brockmeyer discusses managing asset allocation and setting conservative investment return assumptions for Broadway League multi-employer benefit funds.
Insight
Why LDI strategies fail in Taft-Hartley multi-employer pension funds
“LDI strategies don't work in Taft-Hartley for a lot of different reasons, but one of which, one major, I would say, political reason is that once you adopt an LDI type strategy, you are basically saying, These are my liabilities. They're not going to change. A…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Pension governance lag delayed private equity deployment by over two years
“And by the end of the process, it took us north of two years to actually go from the idea of investing in private equity to actually engaging the manager. And then of course, it takes years to actually fund private equity. So, you know, as a result, we missed …”
Assertion Supported
Pre-2008 Taft-Hartley pension plans avoided private equity and foreign equities
“Well, before 2008, 2009 financial crisis, you would be hard pressed to find a Taft-Hartley plan invested in private equity invested in emerging markets. It just didn't exist. In fact, in some industries, you would not even see plans invested in developed inter…”
Insight
Well-funded pension plans reliably trigger union-employer friction over benefit payouts
“The most obvious time where it does is When the union, you know, a plan is really well funded, the union trustees come in and say, we want to increase benefits. Inevitably, the increase being sought will make the employer trustees uncomfortable, and so even if…”
Disclosure
One Broadway pension plan allocates 20% to PE, 15% to EM
“I have one plan in particular that the board has decided it needs to try to Really maximize returns and shoot for an eight plus percent return profile. And that means that we have, you know, 20% invested in private equity and 15% in emerging markets.”
Assertion Supported
OCIO models can be four to six times costlier than consultants
“Relative to the traditional consultants, an OCIO could be four, five, six times more expensive”