Alex Bacchus Appointed Acting CIO of NZ Super

Bacchus will step in for Stephen Gilmore, who is leaving for CalPERS. 

The Guardians of NZ Superannuation, the board that oversees the NZ$75.810 billion ($46.39 billion) New Zealand Superannuation Fund, announced on Friday that it had appointed Alex Bacchus to serve as acting CIO of the fund, with an official recruitment process for a new permanent CIO beginning shortly.

NZ Super CIO Stephen Gilmore will be stepping down this month, leaving Auckland for Sacramento to become the next CIO of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System in July, an appointment that was announced in April. 

At NZ Super, Bacchus is currently the head of strategic tilting, an asset allocation procedure involving a reversion investment strategy by which the fund adjusts its exposure to different asset classes according to changes in prices and long-term valuation signals. This is aimed at allowing the fund to weather short-term volatility while maintaining its long-term investment horizon. NZ Super has utilized the strategy since 2009, which Bacchus has led since 2014.

In March, it was announced that Jo Townsend would be appointed as CEO of NZ Super, succeeding Matt Whineray, who stepped down this past December.

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Prior to leading the fund’s strategic tilting group, Bacchus also worked on NZ Super’s risk and asset allocation teams. Before joining the Guardians in 2009, he was a director of derivatives at Goldman Sachs and a vice president and structured credit derivatives trader at Merrill Lynch.

Bacchus holds a bachelor of engineering degree in civil engineering from the University of Canterbury and a master of science designation in mathematics from City, University of London.

NZ Super aims to fund New Zealand’s universal superannuation, for which all the nation’s residents aged 65 and up are eligible. As of April 30, the fund has returned 13.65%, 8.49%, 10.22% and 9.87% annualized over the past one, five, 10 and 20 years, respectively.

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Pension Risk Transfer Premiums Reach $14.6 Billion in Q1

146 contracts were sold in the quarter, a 26% increase from Q1 2023 and an all-time record.



The rise in pension risk transfer transactions in the U.S. shows no sign of stopping. In the first quarter of this year, single-premium PRT sales reached $14.6 billion across 146 contracts, according to insurance research organization LIMRA, which published the data Thursday in its U.S. group annuity risk transfer sales survey.

The value of Q1 transactions exceeded those in the first quarter of 2023 by 130%, and the number of contracts sold rose 26%, the survey found. The contracts sold in the first quarter covered 200,000 corporate pension plan participants.

“Demand for PRT solutions continues as favorable economic conditions spur plan sponsors to de-risk their pension obligations,” said Keith Golembiewski, head of LIMRA Annuity Research, in a press release. “While there were a few jumbo deals driving the remarkable premium growth, the number of contracts sold was the highest first-quarter results seen since LIMRA has been tracking sales, signaling broad plan sponsor interest.”

Single-premium buy-outs—i.e., where the plan sponsor transfers the plan to an insurer—reached $14.2 billion in the first quarter, across 144 contracts. LIMRA recorded only two buy-in transactions—i.e., where the sponsor continues to run the plan, but the insurer holds the risk—valued at $435.6 million collectively.

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In a separate report, Legal & General Retirement America, the PRT wing of U.K. asset manager Legal & General,  also recorded an estimated $15 billion in pension risk transfer premiums closed in the first quarter.

LIMRA’s Golembiewski wrote that his organization expects the PRT momentum to continue throughout this year. A number of large transactions have already occurred, such as oil giant Shell’s $4.9 billion PRT with Prudential Financial, power company Entergy’s $1.2 billion transaction with MetLife, and telecom provider Verizon’s $5.9 billion pension transfer with Prudential and RGA Reinsurance.

As higher interest rates have elevated many plans’ funded status, and in some cases created a funding surplus in corporate pension plans, increasingly plan sponsors are considering moving their pension liabilities from their balance sheet and offloading them to an annuity provider.

According to data from consultancy Milliman, nearly half of the largest 100 U.S. corporate defined benefit plans are in a funding surplus, and none of them have a funded status of less than 75%.

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