Nicola Parish, executive director of frontline regulation at TPR, said superfunds offered increased security, improved governance and better risk management.
TPR has long been pushing for consolidation as a means to securing the pensions of those in defined benefit schemes that were being run on a deficit.
She said: “We want to see fewer, larger, well run pension schemes and are pleased to see the market innovate and consolidate in savers’ interests.”
Government-run superfunds?
As part of the Mansion House reforms announced in July, the Department for Work and Pensions said it was looking at the role of the PPF as a central body that could absorb and consolidate smaller pension schemes.
These would be smaller ‘unloved’ schemes, which as the Mansion House consultation proposed, could bring together the UK’s fragmented pension schemes into one enormous pot.
A pot that may be used to invest in UK companies, another theme of the Mansion House reforms. Earlier this year the Tony Blair Institute published a report urging for the creation of a pension superfund to help revive the UK economy.
The report Investing in the Future: Boosting Savings and Prosperity for the UK pointed out that overseas pensions invest 16 times more in British venture capital and private equity than domestic public and private pensions do.
“Both pensioners and the economy have suffered as a consequence,” the report said. “We need these reforms to benefit pensioners and light a fire under the UK economy.”
Samantha Downes is a freelance financial journalist
