Norges Bank Open to More Japanese Real Estate Deals

After dipping its toe in Japan’s real estate pool last year, the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund’s property investment arm is considering wading deeper into the waters.

According to Bloomberg Markets, the $1 trillion Norges Bank ‘s Real Estate Management is eager to produce several 100 billion yen ($912 million) deals in Japan each year, should the right offers present themselves.

The fund began investing in real estate in 2010, beginning in Europe before navigating into the US and Japan. Bloomberg reports that Deutsche Asset Management has said that Japanese real estate “currently offers higher yield spreads over domestic government bonds than other global cities, such as London and New York.”

In a 92.8 billion yen ($852 million) deal in December as part of a joint venture with Tokyu Land Corp., Norges Bank had acquired a 70% share of a retail and office portfolio. The other 30% went to Tokyu, with which Norges Bank Real Estate Management CEO Karsten Kallevig would consider making more deals, as well as other partners.

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“We’d love to do more with Tokyu Land, but we would also be very happy to do more with others,” Kallevig told Bloomberg. “It’s hard to find one partner who has the same, let’s call it ambition, as we have.”

Tags: Japan, Norges Bank, Norges Bank Real Estate Management, Sovereign Wealth Fund

A British bus company and its managing director have been fined more than £60,000 ($83,560) for admitting to deliberately trying to avoid providing employees with pensions, according to UK watchdog The Pensions Regulator (TPR). It is the first UK firm to be sentenced for failing to enroll staff in a pension plan.

All UK employers are required by law to set up pensions for employees who meet certain eligibility criteria, and pay minimum employer pension contributions.

In November, the bus company, Stotts Tours, and its managing director Alan Stott, pled guilty to a total of 16 offenses of willfully failing to comply with the law on workplace pensions. On Wednesday, Brighton Magistrates’ Court ordered the company to pay a £27,000 fine, £7,400 in costs, and a £120 victim surcharge. Stott was ordered to pay a £4,455 fine and a £120 victim surcharge. This is in addition to the £14,400 in civil fines that the company already owes for failing to comply with the law on automatic enrollment.

Stotts Tours is also required to pay an estimated £10,000 in backdated pension contributions for its employees, as well as pay all ongoing contributions that are due, otherwise they will face further enforcement action from TPR.

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“Compliance with automatic enrolment remains very high and so it’s extremely disappointing that a tiny minority of employers continue to flout the law by denying their staff the pensions they are entitled to,” said Darren Ryder, TPR’s director of automatic enrolment in a release. “This case shows the cost to employers that failing to comply with automatic enrolment can bring—a bill of tens of thousands of pounds, a criminal conviction, and a damaged reputation.”

TPR has also fined the trustee of workplace pension provider NOW: Pensions £70,000 to fix long-running issues with the pension. The regulator said it required the master trust to act to resolve “persistent administrative failings,” over several years, which have led to some pension plan participants’ savings not being collected and invested.

The regulator issued trust manager NOW: Pensions Ltd. with an improvement notice, and a related notice known as a third-party notice. The notices require that the trustee complete a series of steps to remedy their administrative issues. The steps must be taken by specified deadlines over a number of weeks and months.

In November 2017, TPR fined the trustee £50,000 for failing to ensure that all employee and employer contributions were collected and invested promptly, and another £20,000 in January 2018 for failing to keep some members properly informed.

“This package of measures, together with those voluntarily taken by the trustee, should ensure that the issues with NOW: Pensions which have persisted for so long are finally resolved,” said Nicola Parish, TPR’s executive director of frontline regulation. “We will continue to monitor progress and will issue further fines if necessary to ensure that the trustee and NPL focus on resolving the issues as swiftly as possible.”

Tags: NOW: Pensions, Pension, Stotts Tours, The Pensions Regulator, UK