CIO’s Ninth Annual Industry Innovation Awards: Nominations Open

It’s time again to nominate and celebrate the industry’s most innovative asset owners and managers/servicers. CIO’s ninth annual Industry Innovation Awards will take place December 13 at the New York Public Library, celebrating the most innovative and talented players of institutional investing.

Please nominate asset owners and managers/servicers for this year’s awards. Nominations will close August 4, and all finalists will be announced in early September.

This year, the CIO editorial team will consult an advisory board of former and current chief investment officers, including Raphael Arndt, CIO of Australia’s Future Fund; Jagdeep Singh Bachher, CIO, vice president of Investments, University of California; Matt Clark, CIO, South Dakota Investment Council; Scott Evans, CIO of the New York City Pension Funds; David Holmgren, CIO of Hartford HealthCare; Tom Joy, CIO, Church of England; Kim Lew, CIO, Carnegie Corporation of New York; Richard Nuzum, president of Mercer’s global wealth business (2017 Consultant of the Year); and Bob Watson, CIO of FCA US. Some categories, such as investment outsourcing, transition management, and corporate investment strategies, will be judged largely on data collected via the CIO survey system.

The lifetime achievement award, which Ashbel C. “Ash” Williams, executive director and CIO of the Florida State Board of Administration (SBA), won last year, will be presented at the dinner. An overall winner from the asset owner categories will also be chosen and awarded CIO of the Year (presented last year to Evans).

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Our Next Generation Award is chosen the evening of the awards dinner, following a panel at the CIO Influential Investors’ Forum.

This year’s asset owner categories include (2017 winners in parentheses):

Foundation (Carnegie Foundation, Kim Lew)

Endowment (Church Commissioners for England, Tom Joy)

Corporate Defined Benefit Pension Plan Below $5 Billion (Computer Sciences – CSRA Inc., Brian Reed)

Corporate Defined Benefit Pension Plan Above $5 Billion (ABB, Elisabeth Bourqui)

Public Defined Benefit Plan Below $15 Billion (South Dakota Investment Council, Matt Clark)

Public Defined Benefit Plan Between $15 Billion and $100 Billion (Hawaii Employees’ Retirement System, Vijoy Chattergy)

Public Defined Benefit Plan Above $100 Billion (NYC Retirement System, Scott Evans)

Sovereign Wealth Fund (Australian Future Fund, Raphael Arndt)

Healthcare Organization (Hartford HealthCare, David Holmgren)

Defined Contribution Plan (Fiat Chrysler FCA US, Bob Watson)

ESG (University of California Regents, Jagdeep Singh Bachher)

Next Generation (W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Carlos Rangel)
Consulting (Mercer, Rich Nuzum)

*New 2018 Category: Collaboration

Asset management categories include (2017 winners in parentheses; italics indicate altered category):

Fixed Income (Nuveen Asset Management)

Equities (including alternative equity beta) (BlackRock)

Multi-Asset (including risk-balanced strategies) (Neuberger Berman)

Private Equity (Apollo Global Management)

Hedge Funds (Citadel)

Real Assets (AEW Global)

Defined Contribution Strategies (Prudential)

Investment Outsourcing (Russell Investments)

Corporate Investment Strategies (includes the overall criteria to help corporate CIOs achieve their goals including positioning for growth, innovation in risk management, and hedging overall portfolios.)

(Legal & General Investment Management America)

Transition Management (BlackRock)

Data & Technology (FactSet)

ESG Investing (Generation Investment Management)

*New 2018 Category: Emerging Markets

*New 2018 Category: Corporate LDI Strategies

Tags: CIO, Innovation Awards

UK pension watchdog The Pensions Regulator (TPR) has suspended the trustee of the Optimum Retirement Benefits Plan while he is being investigated by police for conspiracy to defraud.

TPR said trustee Gordon Craig is the subject of an investigation by Titan, a regional organized crime unit, in connection with his role as a trustee of Optimum Retirement Benefits Plan and other pension schemes.

Although Craig has not been charged with a crime, the regulator’s Determinations Panel decided that an ongoing investigation by the police organized crime unit was sufficient reason to suspend him. Section 4 of the Pensions Act of 1995 gives TPR the power to suspend a trustee who police are considering bringing criminal proceedings against for offenses involving dishonesty or deception.

The suspension is “overwhelmingly in the interests of scheme members and for the protection of scheme assets,” said the panel in its determination notice.

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TPR appointed Dalriada Trustees, an independent trustee services provider, to oversee the Optimum Retirement Benefits Plan in place of Craig and the other trustees.

“This will protect other pension holders by preventing them from transferring their funds into the scheme,” said TPR in a release.

According to the determination notice, a total of £13.4 million ($17.8 million) was transferred to Optimum Retirement Benefits Plan from the pensions of 288 people. In some cases, members were persuaded by cold calls to transfer their pensions. After participants transferred their pensions to Optimum, they received loans from companies linked to Craig for as much as 75% of their funds, which is considered a type of fraud known as pension liberation, said TPR. Introducers were also paid tens of thousands of pounds in fees.

“The permission of activity that appears to be pensions liberation strongly suggests that Mr. Craig, if he has the knowledge and skill of a pensions trustee, is not exercising it properly,” said the panel.

The funds that were not paid out as loans to members were then invested in high-risk, illiquid investments including gem-mining and olive oil processing, and Craig paid himself nearly £500,000 from pension funds in just 12 months.

The panel said it was also concerned that the Optimum trustees had breached their duties by keeping poor records and having limited knowledge of how the pension plan should have operated.

Optimum Financial Solutions Limited, the sponsoring employer of Optimum Retirement Benefits Plan, was dissolved in the public interest by the High Court in February following an Insolvency Service investigation.

Tags: Gordon Craig, Litigation, Pension, The Pensions Regulator