Home > News > Newsmakers > Trump Nominates Brian Quintenz as CFTC Commissioner
Newsmakers

Trump Nominates Brian Quintenz as CFTC Commissioner

Founder of Saeculum Capital Management has been re-nominated after being withdrawn from consideration earlier this year.

By Michael Katz

The White House has nominated Brian Quintenz, founder of Saeculum Capital Management, to be a commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CTFC) for a term expiring April 13, 2020.

Quintenz was originally nominated by President Obama last year, but his confirmation was not voted on before Congress ended its session for the year. And earlier this year, President Trump had formally withdrawn Quintenz’s nomination before re-nominating him late last week. He would fill the seat vacated by Scott O’Malia.

“Should I be confirmed, I pledge to ensure the market concerns of the agricultural sector are recognized and to continue developing a firsthand knowledge of the agricultural community,” Quintenz said before the Senate Agriculture Committee when nominated in 2016. “Transparency increases market efficiency and can provide important checks on risky behavior. The Commission’s focus on data and transparency is encouraging, but more progress is needed.”

In his testimony, Quintenz indicated that he was in favor of restrained regulation. He noted that the financial crisis of 2008 “exposed deep flaws in our markets” and deserved a legislative and a regulatory response. However, he added that “regulations meant to address those flaws should not spill over to harm the normal activity of ordinary businesses. When costs are added without targeting risk, poor outcomes ensue. When standardized rules treat low-risk behavior and high-risk behavior equally, risk is encouraged instead of reduced.”

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Quintenz was the founder of Saeculum Capital Management in 2013, and before that he was a consultant with Rose International, and was a senior associate at Hill-Townsend Capital. Quintenz served in the office of US Representative Deborah Pryce from 2001 to 2007, first as a staff assistant, then rising to the level of senior policy advisor. He received a B.S. from Duke University, and an M.B.A. from Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business.

“Saeculum is an investment firm currently registered with the CFTC as a Commodity Pool Operator. As the sole proprietor of the firm, it is my responsibility to effectively and meticulously manage risk as well as compliance,” Quintenz told the Senate Agriculture Committee. “I am, therefore, very familiar with the CFTC’s investor protection rules, disclosure requirements, and recordkeeping obligations,” he said, adding that “I will work to ensure that regulations and their burdens are tied to the risks being mitigated.”

CFTC has a total of five commissioners, and there are currently three vacancies.

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Home > News > Newsmakers > Royal Mail Pension Trustees Agree to Changes
Newsmakers

Royal Mail Pension Trustees Agree to Changes

Board “reluctantly” agrees to close sections of the pension plan.

By Michael Katz

The board of trustees for the UK’s Royal Mail Pension Plan has agreed to the Royal Mail’s proposal to close sections B and C of the pension fund.

“This was a difficult decision for the board to take, but it was taken, reluctantly, after having heard arguments from all sides and weighing up all the relevant issues,” said Joanna Matthews, chair of Royal Mail Pension Trustees Limited in a letter to plan participants. “The trustees’ advisers found that if the plan remained open and benefits continued to build up there was a risk that the plan would be unable to pay all the benefits that have been built up by the members once the current surplus is used up.”

Matthews added that “the advice was that the plan should not rely on Royal Mail being able to afford to provide any additional funding in future.”

Section B provides benefits for members of the plan who joined after November 30, 1971, and section C provides benefits for members who joined since April 1, 1987.

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The plan, which has more than 121,000 members, will be closed to future accrual on March 31, 2018, and it will only affect Royal Mail employee members of the pension. Until then, the company’s contribution rate will remain at 17.1% of members’ pensionable pay. But from April 2018, members would no longer build up future pension on a defined benefit basis, but on a defined contribution basis.

The decision came just after Royal Mail said in its most recent pension plan valuation that the cost of benefits are out clipping the  the total annual contributions by £900 million ($1.16 billion). It also said that the actuarial funding surplus would be depleted during 2018 if the plan remained in its current form. After 2018, Royal Mail said the annual cost would be more than double the current contributions.

“The cost of benefits being accrued each year, based on market conditions at the end of March 2017, would currently be around £1.3 billion,” Royal Mail said in its 2018 pension plan valutaion. “This is significantly greater than the total annual contributions of around £400 million that the company and employees make.”

The Communication Workers Union (CWU) has condemned Royal Mail’s decision to close its current defined benefit pension plan.

“In place of the current defined benefit scheme, Royal Mail plan to put all members into inferior money purchase alternatives,” said the CWO in a statement. “On average, employees face losing up to a third of their future pensions. For a 50 year old Section C member earning £25,000 a year and retiring at 65, this would equate to a loss of £4,392 a year (£109,800 over 25 years).”

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