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Always a Pensions Angle
AAPA presents... The World Cup of Pensions (Part 2)
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The beautiful game continues - for people who still get a little too excited about replacement rates.
In part two, Tom and Nick pick up where the spreadsheet left off, taking the surviving nations from the Round of 16 all the way to the final to crown the world's greatest pension system. Brian is back on VAR duty, weighting his replacement rates and steadfastly denying he's been siding with anyone.
Across the closing rounds you'll get squeaky-bum-time penalty shootouts, a few heavyweight clashes, the occasional 7-1 reminder that pension assets aren't everything, and three judges, three methodologies and one increasingly inevitable champion. Strong opinions throughout. Usable financial advice: still none.
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AAPA presents... The World Cup of Pensions (Part 1)
41:42|It's the beautiful game, reimagined for people who get a little too excited about replacement rates.Hosts Tom and Nick have done something nobody asked for: assessed all 48 World Cup nations across eight pension and lifestyle metrics and run a full knockout tournament to crown the world's greatest retirement system. There's no group stage, because the real ones are complicated enough - but there is a referee, Brian Gielty of LAPF Investments, to adjudicate the inevitable disagreements via VAR.
Spinning the Wheel of Pensions: LGPS, Dashboards and Retirement Living Standards
40:07|The pensions news keeps coming, so Thomas and Nick spin the wheel again. This time: Fit for the Future deadline shuffles for LGPS pools, Nick's enduring (and largely solo) excitement about pensions dashboards, the thorny question of who actually understands the AI creeping into the industry, and what the latest Retirement Living Standards really tell us. Plus a World Cup of pension systems - coming to a future episode, maybe.The Report, the Gap and the Robot in the Room
53:09|The Pensions Commission's interim report has landed - all 190 pages of it - confirming what the industry already feared: 15 million people are under-saving. Tom and Nick dig into what happens before the full report arrives in "early 2027" (definition pending). Plus the shrinking-but-still-enormous gender pensions gap, conflict-zone and local investment, and the regulator's new line on AI - including whether your pension chatbot can be trusted or is just confidently making things up.LGPS Interviews Special: Louise Jack
29:38|In this episode of the LGPS Interviews, we sit down with Louise Jack, chief operating and financial officer at LPPI, to discuss how the pool has tripled its client base and doubled its assets under management following the Fit for the Future consultation. Louise shares insights on recruitment and integrating Brunel staff, opening the new Bristol office, building trust with partner funds, and the governance, operational resilience and cyber security considerations that come with scaling up.LGPS Interviews Special: Joe McDonnell
31:51|In a new episode of our LGPS Interviews Special, Nick and Thomas sit down with Border to Coast Chief Investment Officer Joe McDonnell. Joe shares his perspective on navigating geopolitical turbulence, the realities of welcoming seven new partner funds into the pool, and how Border to Coast is approaching local investment, asset transition, and the question of scale
Live from the Pooling Symposium – A Pension Schemes Bill (Act!!) Special
36:06|Recorded live (well, live-ish) at the Pooling Symposium, Nick and Tom are joined by two LGPS heavyweights – Roger Phillips and Clair Alcock of the Scheme Advisory Board – to unpack what the newly-minted Pension Schemes Act actually means for the LGPS.Ping pong, Trojan horses and the Pension Schemes Act
29:19|The Pension Schemes Bill is now the Pension Schemes Act. Nick and Tom walk through the final week of parliamentary ping pong and the last-minute concessions that got mandation over the line - the sunset clause, the savers' interest test, and the new report on barriers to UK investment. They also dig into the parts of the Act overshadowed by the mandation row: DB superfunds, value for money, surplus release rules and small pots consolidation. Plus a preview of this week's first-ever live podcast with Roger Phillips and Clair Alcock of the Scheme Advisory Board.Ping pong, poetry, and partial u-turns
34:18|Tom and Nick return from the Easter break to find the Pension Schemes Bill's Commons debate a bit of a damp squib, with the government sweeping aside Lords amendments and the Conservatives pledging repeal if they win the next election. Plus, Railpen and LAPFF line up against BP's chair ahead of the 23 April AGM.