Tag: Bank of England

Bank of England Bought Only Small Amounts of Bonds even Today, Warns Pension Funds They Have “Only Three Days Left” to Unwind Derivatives with BOE Support

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://wolfstreet.com/2022/10/11/bank-of-england-bought-only-small-amounts-of-bonds-even-today-warns-pension-funds-they-have-only-three-days-left-to-unwind-derivatives-with-boe-support/

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The relatively puny amounts of actual purchases show that the BOE is trying to calm the waters around the gilts market enough to give the pension funds some time to unwind in a more or less orderly manner whatever portion of the £1 trillion in “liability driven investment” (LDI) funds they cannot maintain.

The small scale of the intervention also shows that the BOE is not too upset with the gilts yields that rose sharply in the run-up to the crisis, triggering the pension crisis, and have roughly remained at those levels. The 10-year gilt yield today at 4.44% was roughly unchanged from yesterday and just below the September 27 spike peak.

And it makes sense to have these kinds of yields in the UK, and it would make sense for these yields to be much higher, given that inflation has spiked to 10%, and yields have not kept up with it, nor have they caught up with it. And to fight this raging inflation, the BOE will need to maneuver those yields far higher still:

So today, BOE Governor Andrew Bailey, speaking at the Institute of International Finance annual meeting in Washington D.C., warned these pension fund managers that the BOE will only provide this level of support, however little it may be, through the end of the week, to smoothen the gilt market and give the pension funds a chance to unwind in a more or less orderly manner the portions of their LDI funds that they cannot maintain.

Author(s): Wolf Richter

Publication Date: 11 Oct 2022

Publication Site: Wolf Street

Bank of England to Treasury, House of Commons

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/30136/documents/174584/default/

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LDI strategies enable DB pension funds to use leverage (i.e. to borrow) to increase their
exposure to long-term gilts, while also holding riskier and higher-yielding assets such as
equities in order to boost their returns. The LDI funds maintain a cushion between the
value of their assets and liabilities, intended to absorb any losses on the gilts. If losses
exceed this cushion, the DB pension fund investor is asked to provide additional funds
to increase it, a process known as rebalancing. This can be a more difficult process for
pooled LDI funds, in part because they manage investment from a large number of small
and medium sized DB pension funds.

Diagram 1 gives a stylised example of how the gilt market dynamics last week could
have affected a DB pension fund that was investing in an LDI fund. In this illustrative and simplified example, the left hand side of the diagram shows that the scheme is underfunded (in deficit) before any change in gilt yields, with the value of its assets lower than
the value of its liabilities. More than 20% of UK DB pension funds were in deficit in August
2022 and more than 40% were a year earlier. In this example, the fund is holding growth
assets to boost returns and has also invested in an LDI fund to increase holdings of longterm gilts, funded by repo borrowing at 2 times leverage (i.e. half of the holding of gilts in
the LDI fund is funded by borrowing). The cushion (labelled ‘capital’) is half the size of
the gilt holdings.

The right hand side of the diagram shows what would happen should gilt yields rise (and
gilt prices fall). The value of the gilts that are held in the LDI fund falls, in this example by
around 30%. This severely erodes the cushion in the LDI fund. If gilt prices fell further, it
would risk eroding the entire cushion, leaving the LDI fund with zero net asset value and
leading to default on the repo borrowing. This would mean the bank counterparty would
take ownership of the gilts. It should be noted that in this example, the DB pension fund
might be better off overall as a result of the increase in gilt yields. This is because the
market value of its equity and shorter-term bond holdings (‘other assets’) would not fall
by as much as the present value of its pension liabilities, as the latter are more sensitive
to long-term market interest rates. The erosion of the cushion of the LDI fund would lead the LDI fund either to sell gilts to reduce its leverage or to ask the DB pension fund
investors to provide additional funds.


In practice, the move in gilt yields last week threatened to exceed the size of the cushion
for many LDI funds, requiring them to either sell gilts into a falling market or to ask DB
pension plan trustees to raise funds to provide more capital.

Author(s): Sir John Cunliffe, Deputy Governor, Financial Stability

Publication Date: 5 Oct 2022

Publication Site: UK Parliament

Bank of England says pension funds were hours from disaster before it intervened

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/06/bank-of-england-says-pension-funds-were-hours-from-disaster-before-it-intervened.html

Excerpt:

The Bank of England told lawmakers that a number of pension funds were hours from collapse when it decided to intervene in the U.K. long-dated bond market last week.

The central bank’s Financial Policy Committee stepped in after a massive sell-off of U.K. government bonds — known as “gilts” — following the new government’s fiscal policy announcements on Sept. 23.

The emergency measures included a two-week purchase program for long-dated bonds and the delay of the bank’s planned gilt sales, part of its unwinding of Covid pandemic-era stimulus.

The plunge in bond values caused panic in particular for Britain’s £1.5 trillion ($1.69 trillion) in so-called liability-driven investment funds (LDIs). Long-dated gilts account for around two-thirds of LDI holdings.

…..

The 30-year gilt yield fell more than 100 basis points after the bank announced its emergency package on Wednesday Sept. 28, offering markets a much-needed reprieve.

Cunliffe noted that the scale of the moves in gilt yields during this period was “unprecedented,” with two daily increases of more than 35 basis points in 30-year yields.

“Measured over a four day period, the increase in 30 year gilt yields was more than twice as large as the largest move since 2000, which occurred during the ‘dash for cash’ in 2020,” he said.

Author(s): Elliot Smith

Publication Date: 6 Oct 2022

Publication Site: CNBC

U.K.’s LDI-related turmoil puts spotlight on use of derivatives

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.pionline.com/pension-funds/uks-ldi-related-turmoil-could-spread-experts-say

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The Bank of England’s emergency bond-buying last week helped shore up U.K. pension funds and threw a spotlight on a popular strategy among corporate plans known as LDI – or liability-driven investing.

Total assets in LDI strategies in the U.K. rose to almost £1.6 trillion ($1.8 trillion) at the end of 2021, quadrupling from £400 billion in 2011, according to the Investment Association, a trade group that represents U.K. managers. Many LDI mandates allow for the use of derivatives to hedge inflation and interest rate risk.

….

Here’s how LDI works: Liability-driven investing is employed by many pension funds to mitigate the risk of unfunded liabilities by matching their asset allocation and investment policy with current and expected future liabilities. The LDI portion of a pension fund’s portfolio utilizes liability-hedging strategies to reduce interest-rate risk, which could include long government and credit bonds and derivatives exposure.

Jeff Passmore, LDI solutions strategist at MetLife Investment Management, said the situation with U.K. pension plans “has been challenging, and the heavy use of derivatives in the U.K. LDI model has made the current situation worse than it would otherwise be.”

While most U.S. LDI portfolios rely on bonds rather than derivatives, ‘”those U.S. plan sponsors who have leaned heavily on derivatives and leverage should take a cautionary lesson from what we’re seeing currently across the Atlantic.”

….

The U.K. pension debacle “is a plain-and-simple problem of leverage,” Charles Van Vleet, assistant treasurer and chief investment officer at Textron, said in an email.

Many U.K. pension plans were interest rate-hedged at 70%, while also holding 60% in growth assets, suggesting 30% leverage, he said. The portfolio’s growth assets have lost around 20% of value if held in public equities and fixed income or about 5% down if held in private equity, he noted.

“Therefore, to make margin calls on their derivative rate exposure they had to sell growth assets – in some cases, selling physical-gilts to meet derivative-gilt margin calls,” Mr. Van Vleet said.

“The problem is worse for plans who gain rate exposure with leveraged ETFs. The leverage in those funds is commonly via cleared interest rate swaps. Margin calls for cleared swaps can only be met with cash – not posted collateral. Therefore, again selling physical-gilts to meet derivative-gilt margin calls.”

Author(s):

BRIAN CROCE
COURTNEY DEGEN
PALASH GHOSH
ROB KOZLOWSKI

Publication Date: 5 Oct 2022

Publication Site: Pensions & Investments

Bank of England in £65bn scramble to avert financial crisis

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/sep/28/bank-of-england-in-65bn-scramble-to-avert-financial-crisis

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The Bank of England has been forced into emergency action to halt a run on Britain’s pension funds after the impact of Kwasi Kwarteng’s ill-received mini budget prompted fears of a 2008-style financial crisis.

Threadneedle Street said the fallout from a dramatic rise in government borrowing costs since the chancellor’s statement had left it with no choice but to intervene to protect the UK’s financial system.

City sources said the surprise move, less than a week after Kwarteng’s unfunded tax giveaways, was needed to halt a “doom loop” in the bond markets that risked draining pension funds of cash and leaving them at risk of insolvency.

….

Interest rates on government bonds, or gilts, have risen sharply since the chancellor’s £45bn package of tax cuts – making it punitively expensive for thousands of pensions funds to fund their hedging activities.

Officials in the Financial Services Group of the Treasury were at an away day – said to have been held at the Oval cricket ground in London – on Wednesday, but returned to their desks that afternoon. A source said they were not working on the response to the Bank of England’s announcement.

The Bank’s action helped provide Kwarteng with some respite from the financial markets after three days of turmoil that has seen sterling hit its lowest ever level against the dollar, strong criticism of the mini-budget from the International Monetary Fund, about 1,000 mortgage products pulled and interest rates on UK government bonds hit their highest level since 2008. Bond yields fell while the pound recovered in the currency markets after Threadneedle Street’s announcement.

Author(s): Larry Elliott, Pippa Crerar and Richard Partington

Publication Date: 28 Sep 2022

Publication Site: Guardian

Pension funds crisis forces £65bn bailout by Bank

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/09/28/pension-funds-crisis-forces-65bn-bailout-bank/

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Britain’s pension funds were on Wednesday at the centre of the financial crisis sparked by the mini-budget forcing the Bank of England to launch a £65 billion emergency bailout. 

The Bank warned of a “material risk to UK financial stability” and stepped in to buy long-term gilts, as plunging markets for UK debt sent borrowing costs spiralling and forced pension funds to dump their assets. Economists compared the crisis to the run of withdrawals that led to the collapse of Northern Rock in the financial crisis. 

However, the move by Governor Andrew Bailey helped restore some calm to markets, and pensions experts said retirement pots were not under threat. Nevertheless, worries that Mr Kwarteng’s radical mini-Budget will trigger further shocks for investors in gilts wiped billions of pounds off the stock market value of Britain’s biggest pension funds.

….

The Bank hopes to halt a domino effect in the City by temporarily suspending plans to offload £80bn of gilts held on its balance sheet. Instead for 13 days it will revert to buying them at a rate of £5bn per day using newly created money in a process known as quantitative easing.

The measures sparked a sharp rally in the market for the 30-year gilts that pension funds had been forced to sell. The cost of such borrowing fell by more than 1 percentage point, a significant downward move. Meanwhile the pound fell initially after the Bank’s announcement on fears of further inflation but recovered to finish roughly flat at nearly $1.09 against the dollar.

Author(s):

Tim Wallace
and
Ben Riley-Smith

Publication Date: 28 Sept 2022

Publication Site: UK Telegraph

Battle lines drawn over the future of UK’s biggest pension fund

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/feb/05/battle-lines-drawn-over-the-future-of-uks-biggest-pension-fund

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The UK’s biggest private pension scheme, the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), was no different: the custodian of the retirement savings of 470,000 university and college workers lost billions of pounds.

At its latest valuation, actuaries came up with an alarming conclusion: the assets of USS were only worth £67bn, leaving a huge deficit of £18bn compared to the liabilities it has promised to pay out in the future.

Yet the recovery was almost as extraordinary as the decline. Central banks pumped money into the economy, and tech companies in the US recorded astonishing gains. That helped USS assets back to more than £90bn at the end of January.

That recovery – and the controversial question of how the fund accounts for it – has put USS at the centre of a row that could result in university staff occupying picket lines across the country. The scheme will also be at the centre of a legal battle this month, with academics asking a court for permission to sue directors for not performing their duties.

….

 In a paper published in September, David Miles, professor of economics at Imperial College London and a former Bank of England monetary policymaker, and James Sefton, also an Imperial economics professor, argued that the risk of USS having insufficient funds to pay promised pensions was between 20% and 40%.

Simon Pilcher, chief executive of USS Investment Management, is in charge of choosing the actual investments. “Sadly, one can’t project the past into the future,” he said.

“Today, we think it is reasonable to expect lower returns going forward than we’ve experienced in the past, because it’s those higher returns that have driven us to these high prices.”

Author(s): Jasper Jolly

Publication Date: 5 Feb 2022

Publication Site: The Guardian

Visualizing the 700-Year Fall of Interest Rates

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/700-year-decline-of-interest-rates/

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Today’s graphic from Paul Schmelzing, visiting scholar at the Bank of England (BOE), shows how global real interest rates have experienced an average annual decline of -0.0196% (-1.96 basis points) throughout the past eight centuries.

The Evidence on Falling Rates

Collecting data from across 78% of total advanced economy GDP over the time frame, Schmelzing shows that real rates* have witnessed a negative historical slope spanning back to the 1300s.

Displayed across the graph is a series of personal nominal loans made to sovereign establishments, along with their nominal loan rates. Some from the 14th century, for example, had nominal rates of 35%. By contrast, key nominal loan rates had fallen to 6% by the mid 1800s.

Author(s): Dorothy Neufeld

Publication Date: 4 Feb 2020

Publication Site: Visual Capitalist

Standard Chartered fined £46.5m by Bank of England over reporting failures

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/dec/20/standard-chartered-fined-bank-of-england-pra

Excerpt:

The Bank of England has fined Standard Chartered £46.5m for repeatedly misreporting its liquidity position and for “failing to be open and cooperative” with the regulator.

The Bank’s Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) said Standard Chartered had made five errors in reporting an important liquidity metric between March 2018 and May 2019, which meant the watchdog did not have a reliable overview of the bank’s US dollar liquidity position.

…..

One of the errors occurred in November 2018, as a result of a mistake in a spreadsheet entry. A positive amount was included when a zero or negative value was expected, leading to an $7.9bn (£6bn) over-reporting of the bank’s dollar liquidity position.

Author(s): Joanna Partridge

Publication Date: 20 Dec 2021

Publication Site: The Guardian

Omicron Is an Economic Threat, but Inflation Is Worse, Central Bankers Say

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/16/business/economy/omicron-inflation.html

Excerpt:

Facing surging inflation, three of the world’s most influential central banks — the Federal Reserve, Bank of England and European Central Bank — took decisive steps within 24 hours of each other to look past Omicron’s economic uncertainty.

On Thursday, Britain’s central bank unexpectedly raised interest rates for the first time in more than three years as a way to curb inflation that has reached a 10-year high. The eurozone’s central bank confirmed it would stop purchases under a bond-buying program in March. The day before, the Fed projected three interest rate increases next year and said it would accelerate the wind down of its own bond-buying program.

….

Aside from Omicron, the central banks were running out of reasons to continue emergency levels of monetary stimulus designed to keep money flowing through financial markets and to keep lending to businesses and households robust throughout the pandemic. The drastic measures of the past two years had done the job — and then some: Inflation is at a nearly 40-year high in the United States; in the eurozone it is the highest since records began in 1997; and price rises in Britain have consistently exceeded expectations.

….

The Federal Reserve and Bank of England are worried about the persistence of high inflation. For the European Central Bank, inflation in the medium term is too low, not too high. It is still forecasting inflation to be below its 2 percent target in 2023 and 2024. To help reach that target in coming years, the central bank will increase the size of an older bond-buying program beginning in April, after purchases end in the larger, pandemic-era program. This is to avoid “a brutal transition,” Ms. Lagarde said.

Author(s): Eshe Nelson

Publication Date: 16 Dec 2021

Publication Site: New York Times

Visualizing the 700-Year Fall of Interest Rates

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.visualcapitalist.com/700-year-decline-of-interest-rates/

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Excerpt:

Today’s graphic from Paul Schmelzing, visiting scholar at the Bank of England (BOE), shows how global real interest rates have experienced an average annual decline of -0.0196% (-1.96 basis points) throughout the past eight centuries.

….

Starting in 1311, data from the report shows how average real rates moved from 5.1% in the 1300s down to an average of 2% in the 1900s.

The average real rate between 2000-2018 stands at 1.3%.

….

Demographics impact interest rates on a number of levels. The aging population—paired with declining fertility levels—result in higher savings rates, longer life expectancies, and lower labor force participation rates.

In the U.S., baby boomers are retiring at a pace of 10,000 people per day, and other advanced economies are also seeing comparable growth in retirees. Theory suggests that this creates downward pressure on real interest rates, as the number of people in the workforce declines.

Author(s): Dorothy Neufeld

Publication Date: 4 Feb 2020

Publication Site: Visual Capitalist

The Sustainability of State and Local Government Pensions: A Public Finance Approach

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/BPEASP21_Lenney-et-al_conf-draft_updated_3.24.21.pdf

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In this paper we explore the fiscal sustainability of U.S. state and local government pensions plans.
Specifically, we examine if under current benefit and funding policies state and local pension plans
will ever become insolvent, and, if so, when. We then examine the fiscal cost of stabilizing pension
debt as a share of the economy and examine the cost associated with delaying such stabilization
into the future. We find that, despite the projected increase in the ratio of beneficiaries to workers
as a result of population aging, state and local government pension benefit payments as a share of
the economy are currently near their peak and will eventually decline significantly. This previously
undocumented pattern reflects the significant reforms enacted by many plans which lower benefits
for new hires and cost-of-living adjustments often set beneath the expected pace of inflation.
Under low or moderate asset return assumptions, we find that few plans are likely to exhaust their
assets over the next few decades. Nonetheless, under these asset returns plans are currently not
sustainable as pension debt is set to rise indefinitely; plans will therefore need to take action to
reach sustainability. But the required fiscal adjustments are generally moderate in size and in all
cases are substantially lower than the adjustments required under the typical full prefunding
benchmark. We also find generally modest returns, if any, to starting this stabilization process
now versus a decade in the future. Of course, there is significant heterogeneity with some plans
requiring very large increases to stabilize their pension debt.

Author(s): Jamie Lenney, Bank of England
Byron Lutz, Federal Reserve Board of Governors
Finn Schüle, Brown University
Louise Sheiner, Brookings Institution

Publication Date: 25 March 2021

Publication Site: Brookings