We take our responsibilities as investors seriously at USS and have had a team dedicated to Responsible Investment for almost two decades. We’re investing over £60 billion in a variety of different asset classes, on behalf of thousands of pension scheme members.
Earlier this year we learned that an historic settlement had been reached in a large and long-running legal case. The total value of the settlement is USD 3 billion (ie. USD 3,000,000,000). This is a genuinely historic settlement for a case of this kind – it’s the largest securities/investments class action settlement in over a decade, and is the largest settlement ever in a class action involving a non-US issuer (ie. Petrobras). It is the fifth largest class action settlement ever in the US.
Events in the last week have brought to a head very real concerns among members around the country as regards the USS valuation. However, it concerns me that the debate we’ve witnessed has led to some misunderstandings amongst members of the trustee’s position. I would like to take the opportunity to address some of these in turn.
Elizabeth Fernando, USS Investment Management’s Head of Equities, was interviewed at the 2018 PLSA Investment Conference on how the equities markets have evolved over the last ten years. She discusses the challenges currently facing the asset management sector and the increased focus on professionalism, and highlights the work USS is doing in responsible investment.
Last summer we published our Annual Report & Accounts and announced that, as at 31 March 2017, our assets had grown in value by more than £10bn in just 12 months, to £60bn. But it was our funding deficit that made headlines and, since then, USS’s funding position has been the subject of some debate as we’ve carried out our latest triennial valuation.
USS’s Co-Head of Responsible Investment, David Russell, was interviewed by S&P Dow Jones Indices about the approach we have taken to measure carbon footprinting across all asset classes (not just equities) – and some of the challenges we encountered when we tried to do this.
The current USS valuation is challenging. The issues we have had to address are not unique to us, or the Higher Education sector. They are much broader issues about future economic growth, future investment returns, and how they influence the ability of employers to underwrite pension promises.
In October 2016, USS launched USS Investment Builder, the new defined contribution section of the scheme. One year on, we take a look at how it has performed, and how our members feel about it.
Guy Coughlan - Chief Risk Officer In order to put a price on providing a promised £1 of pension for each year in retirement through the USS Retirement Income Builder, we’re effectively trying to predict the future.