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I always want our SG govt would consider giving pension to our elderly. In the olden days, our grandparents earned low wages and now facing high cost of living. Some told me that if we want to give pension to the elderly, we need to pay higher taxes. However, after reading this late news, I seriously got nothing much to say. Take a deep breath and read on. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you didn't already know, our office holders receive pensions. Yes, a sum of money after they quit for the rest of their lives. It's in the government statutes here - http://statutes.agc.gov.sg/non_version/cgi...le&doctitle Who is an office holder? - The term office holder includes the Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, Speaker, Senior Minister, Minister, Senior Minister of State, Minister of State, Mayor, Senior Parliamentary Secretary, Parliamentary Secretary or Political Secretary. How much? - Depending of length of service, office holders can get a maximum of 2/3 of their annual last drawn salary as an annual pension. For example, PM Lee earns S$3.87m a year now, will get at least S$2.58m a year when he retires. Mah Bow Tan will get at least S$1.8m a year. Vivian Balakrishnan will get S$800k for his 9 years in ministerial office if he retires this year. Pension lumpsum - Pensions can be paid out in lumpsum if the office holder retiree so chooses. For this purpose the annual pension sum payable is multiplied by a 'prescribed commutation factor' to be decided by the President. Someone who sent an email out about this reckons this number to be 14.6. So if a minister's annual salary is S$2m when he retires, he can ask for S$29.2m in one go. Taxes on pension - None. See government statutes http://statutes.agc.gov.sg/non_version/cgi-bin/cgi_getdata.pl?actno=2001-REVED-134&doctitle=INCOME+TAX+ACT&date=latest&method=part&segid=1009775494-001719 section (h)://http://statutes.agc.gov.sg/non_vers...719 section (h) What about the rest of the civil service? - The rest of the civil service was converted away from the pension scheme to CPF some time ago. So ministerial office is only civil service position in SG that allows for pensions now. So what's the problem? - After the facts, this is an opinion - These guys already are the highest paid politicians in the world. Seriously, it's a lot of money. Aren't they also saving up for their retirement like the rest of us? We private sector folks will get nothing when we retire (hopefully). MM has encouraged us to keep on working into our 60s and 70s - is it so that our continuing tax payments would fund their pensions? Talk about skewing the rich-poor gap. I'm not cool with it. - Gurmit Singh Source: Link

What it means to be a successful investor in 2016 can be summed up in four words: bigger gambles, lower returns. Thanks to rock-bottom interest rates in the U.S., negative rates in other parts of the world, and lackluster growth, investors are becoming increasingly creative—and embracing increasing risk—to bolster their performances. To even come close these days to what is considered a reasonably strong return of 7.5%, pension funds and other large endowments are reaching ever further into riskier investments: adding big dollops of global stocks, real estate and private-equity investments to the once-standard investment of high-grade bonds. Two decades ago, it was possible to make that kind of return just by buying and holding investment-grade bonds, according to new research. In 1995, a portfolio made up wholly of bonds would return 7.5% a year with a likelihood that returns could vary by about 6%, according to research by Callan Associates Inc., which advises large investors. To make a 7.5% return in 2015, Callan found, investors needed to spread money across risky assets, shrinking bonds to just 12% of the portfolio. Private equity and stocks needed to take up some three-quarters of the entire investment pool. But with the added risk, returns could vary by more than 17%. Nominal returns were used for the projections, but substituting in assumptions about real returns, adjusted for inflation, would have produced similar findings, said Jay Kloepfer, Callan’s head of capital markets research. The amplified bets carry potential pitfalls and heftier management fees. Global stocks and private equity represent among the riskiest bets investors can make today, Mr. Kloepfer said. “Stocks are just ownership, and they can go to zero. Private equity can also go to zero,” said Mr. Kloepfer, noting bonds will almost always pay back what was borrowed, plus a coupon. “The perverse result is you need more of that to get the extra oomph.” Bonds historically produced a source of safe, good-enough streams of profit that allowed long-term, risk-averse investors to hit annual targets. The era of low rates has all but erased that buffer. The absence of a few extra percentage points of yield means investors must now compensate by embracing unsafe bets that could strike big—or flop. The Callan report highlights how risky an endeavor that is. “Not nearly enough attention has been paid to the toll these low rates—and now negative rates—are taking on the ability of investors to save and plan for the future,” BlackRock Inc. Chief Executive Officer Laurence Fink said in a recent letter to shareholders. Some investors such as David Villa of the $100 billion State of Wisconsin Investment Board argue that at near zero, rates are artificially suppressed, and it’s creating bubbles in asset prices. Advertisement “We know the Federal Reserve is trying to trick us—we’re dealing with distortions,” said Mr. Villa, referring to how low rates have historically encouraged investors to take on more risk. “They want us to invest in building new things, but what [investors are] doing is trading existing assets at higher and higher prices.” Many large investors aren’t gambling that big—and their returns are lagging well behind internal targets. The nation’s largest public pension fund, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, has one-fifth of its assets in bonds and is down 1.3% since July 1, according to public documents. The system, known by its abbreviation Calpers, also has 53.1% of its assets in stocks, 9% in real estate and 9.4% in private equity. In 2015, Calpers posted a return of 2.4%, below its target rate of 7.5%. The risk dilemma for investors has real-life consequences. Retirement plans, including Calpers and the New York State Common Retirement Fund, are lowering what they predict they can earn on their investments, a move that means workers and cities likely face higher contributions and taxes. For insurers, lower bond returns mean life-insurance policyholders pay more for coverage. It wasn’t always this complex. Two decades ago big investors had their money sitting primarily in U.S. stocks and bonds. Inflation was 4% and yields on investment-grade bonds roared upward at double that rate. After the 2008 financial crisis, central bankers pushed down rates to stimulate growth, dropping real returns close to zero for higher-quality debt. Government bonds in Japan and Europe now have nominal yields below zero. Cheaper borrowing costs generally spur new investments from companies or consumers. But instead, global production is flat or declining, and consumers face stagnant wages that crimp their ability to spend. That has pushed down the “neutral rate,” or the real rate of interest that neither accelerates nor decelerates the economy. It is now basically flat, compared with 4% or 5% in prior decades, said Roberto Perli, a partner at Cornerstone Macro, a macroeconomic research firm. While some investors are loading up on traditionally risky assets as a way of hitting ambitious targets, others—concerned about a slowing global economy—are wrestling with how to reduce risk without piling into bonds. ‘I can’t just reach out and grab a high-quality bond that’s yielding 6% or 7%. They don’t exist.’ —Tom Girard, New York Life Insurance Co. The nation’s second-largest public pension plan, the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, has shifted a significant amount of money away from some stocks and bonds to protect against a downturn. It moved assets into U.S. Treasurys and so-called liquid-alternative funds, which mimic hedge-fund strategies. Calstrs, as the pension is called, reported gains of 1.5% during a choppy 2015, with returns on its fixed-income investments up just 0.6%. “We used to say bonds would be that risk protection,” saidChristopher Ailman, chief investment officer at Calstrs. “Now we can’t.” For instance, in 2002, safer corporate bonds returned about 11%, while U.S. stocks fell roughly 22%, according to a Segal Rogerscasey analysis of the Russell 3000 stock index, plus historical bond returns tracked by Barclays and Citigroup. But during the 2008 crisis, stocks fell more than 37% and higher-quality bonds declined 3.3%, according to the Segal Rogerscasey analysis. More recently, those types of bonds fell during stock-market tumbles in August and December, Segal Rogerscasey said. Others are willing to accept lower returns for now and wait for better days ahead. The Wisconsin pension sold off trophy real-estate and private-equity holdings when it believed prices were high over the past two years and switched into publicly traded stocks and bonds that can be sold quickly, Mr. Villa said. Not all investors have the luxury of avoiding bonds. New York Life Insurance Co., which has about 89% of its $220 billion in assets in bonds, once could find what it needed among well-known, plain-vanilla securities. Insurers typically have large holdings of high-quality government and corporate bonds, because of state-regulatory guidelines encouraging safe investments. But now the insurer has to scour the globe for suitable bets in assets in which it had never before dabbled—such as complex bond deals involving railcar leases, shipping containers and legal-settlement payouts. The insurer has “looked under rocks, far and wide” to find suitable fixed-income investments, said Tom Girard, who leads New York Life’s fixed-income team. “I can’t just reach out and grab a high-quality bond that’s yielding 6% or 7%.” he added. “They don’t exist.”

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board ("CPPIB") and Pavilion Group ("Pavilion") today announced the creation of a joint venture to invest in Pavilion Damansara Heights, a mixed-use development project in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. As part of the joint venture, CPPIB will commit approximately MYR485 million (C$170 million) for a 49% interest in the development. Representing CPPIB's first direct real estate investment in Malaysia, Pavilion Damansara Heights is a freehold development integrating corporate towers, luxury residences and a retail galleria. The development is located in one of the most prime and affluent locations in Kuala Lumpur, less than 10km from Petronas Twin Towers. It is well connected by a network of highways and strategically served by two upcoming MRT stations within walking distance to the development. "We are pleased to make our first direct real estate investment in Southeast Asia through this joint venture with one of Malaysia's most well-respected developers, the Pavilion Group," said Jimmy Phua, Managing Director and Head of Real Estate Investments Asia. "This joint venture fits well with our investment strategy as it provides us with a great opportunity to work with a smart partner in a high-quality real estate asset that will provide attractive risk-adjusted returns over the long term." Pavilion is an experienced local developer of commercial and residential projects and is one of the strongest and most well-established Malaysian retail developers. Pavilion has developed several prominent retail malls, office and retail projects in Kuala Lumpur. "We are looking forward to the opportunity to partner with CPPIB in this exciting development in Kuala Lumpur," said Mr Timothy Liew, Project Director of Pavilion Group. "It is a highly anticipated landmark for Damansara Heights, set within Malaysia's most affluent neighbourhood, offering a world-class integrated development that is synonymous with the Pavilion Brand."

The largest U.S. public pension fund intends to sever ties with roughly half of the firms handling its money, one of the most aggressive industry moves yet to reduce fees paid to Wall Street investment managers. The California Public Employees’ Retirement System, or Calpers, will tell its investment board on June 15 of its plans to reduce the number of direct relationships it has with private-equity, real-estate and other external funds to about 100 from 212, said Chief Investment Officer Ted Eliopoulos. The action will be made public on Monday. The dramatic move by the $305 billion Sacramento-based retirement system will create some big winners and losers in the investing world. The list of external money managers Calpers uses include some of the biggest names on Wall Street, including private-equity firms Carlyle Group LP, KKR & Co. and Blackstone GroupLP. The push by Calpers to downsize could have broader ramifications beyond its own portfolio. Calpers is considered an industry bellwether because of its size and history as an early adopter of alternatives to stocks and bonds, and the shift could prompt other U.S. pensions to scale back their ties to Wall Street. “There really will be a significant amount of discussion at other pensions” about whether they should cut external managers in the wake of Calpers’s decision, said Allan Emkin, a managing director at Pension Consulting Alliance who has advised the fund since the 1980s. The pullback would take place over the next five years and is expected to save Calpers hundreds of millions of dollars in management fees. It paid $1.6 billion to external managers last year. The reduction in outside managers won’t fundamentally change Calpers’s investment strategy, or the percentage of assets managed in-house versus externally. The remaining 100 or so outside managers will simply get a bigger pool of funds varying from $350 million to more than $1 billion, Mr. Eliopoulos added. The goal, Mr. Eliopoulos said, is “to gain the best deal on costs and fees that we can.” The 50-year-old Mr. Eliopoulos became the pension fund’s top investment official last September after helping Calpers recover from severe losses sustained during the 2008 financial crisis as head of its real-estate portfolio. His first major move as chief was to shed a $4 billion investment in hedge funds, part of a movement to simplify the approach of a fund that in recent decades loaded up on assets such as real estate, private equity and commodities. Fees paid to outside managers have ballooned over the past decade as many public retirement systems followed Calpers into hedge funds and private equity in an attempt to boost long-term returns and meet their mounting obligations to retirees. But now some pension officials are tiring of the high expenses often charged by outside managers as state and local governments struggle to make up for losses incurred during the financial crisis. Many U.S. pensions, including Calpers, still don’t have enough assets to cover their future costs despite a run-up in the stock market in recent years. “Fees are becoming an increasingly scrutinized area at public pensions,” said Jean-Pierre Aubry, an assistant director at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. In New York City, outside money-management expenses are under review after an April report from Comptroller Scott M. Stringer said external investment firms have cost the city’s local retirement systems billions in the past decade. A similar discussion is under way in New Jersey, where state pensions have paid out $1.5 billion in fees over the past five years, according to a recent report presented to the state Senate last Thursday. In Pennsylvania, where the state is grappling with a $50 billion pension hole, Gov. Tom Wolf declared in a March budget address that “we are going to stop excessive fees to Wall Street managers.” California’s proposed reduction in outside managers is part of a larger effort to reduce risk and complexity at a fund that manages investments and benefits for 1.7 million current and retired workers. Calpers posted a total return of 18.4% for its most recent fiscal year ended June 30, beating its benchmark, but it only has enough assets to cover 77% of its future retirement payouts. As recently as 2007, Calpers had about 300 external managers—a remnant of its pioneering foray into alternative investments such as real estate, hedge funds and private equity. Over the past eight years, it reduced that number to 212, but it is still difficult for the pension fund to effectively monitor all of its investments, according to Mr. Eliopoulos. There are so many outside managers currently that Calpers doesn’t have the ability to make sure all those funds share the same objectives as the large California pension fund and are performing well, according to Calpers Chief Operating Investment Officer Wylie Tollette. “We need to do a better job of keeping track of how those managers evolve, what strategies they’re good at, what they may not be good at to ensure they’re effectively earning their place at the table every year,” said Mr. Tollette, who currently gives Calpers a “B-minus” at doing those tasks. “For an organization like Calpers we need to be an A, if not an A-plus,” Mr. Tollette said. As a measure of overall assets, Calpers currently pays about 0.34% toward management fees, Mr. Tollette said. In 2014, the $1.6 billion spent on those expenses included a one-time incentive payment of $400 million to real-estate funds. Mr. Tollette said that by 2020 he would like to see the amount drop “below” 0.25% of total assets, excluding performance fees. External funds charge management fees, plus a share of the investing profits. Calpers doesn’t expect to immediately terminate outside firms or liquidate holdings, according to Mr. Eliopoulos, who pushed for the hedge-fund decision as well as the move to whittle the number of external funds. The fund’s evaluation of external managers is expected to begin next month. Calpers will consider investing performance, the length of the relationship and strategy, among other factors, Mr. Eliopoulos said. The biggest cuts are expected to occur in Calpers’s private-equity portfolio, where the number of private-equity managers will slim to about 30 from roughly 100. Real estate will go to 15 outside managers from 51. Fixed income and global equity, which is largely managed in-house, will drop to roughly 30 from nearly 60 now. Only the group that invests in timber and infrastructure projects like roadways is expected to rise, from about six managers to 10. Some 15 slots will go to upstart firms that Calpers plans to identify over the next several years. Mr. Eliopoulos said the staff discussed a reduction higher or lower than roughly 100 but decided to land on a whole number. “There’s no science to this. This is a judgment,” he said.

SINGAPORE'S Central Provident Fund (CPF) system ranks top among similar social security systems in Asian countries, but it is Denmark's well-funded pension system which has emerged the best globally. The 2014 Mercer Melbourne Global Pension Index identified Singapore's CPF is a "sound structure, with many good features, but has some areas for improvement that differentiates it from an A-grade system". The Singapore retirement system continues to score a grade of B, but is expected to be upgraded once shortcomings are addressed, said Neil Narale, Mercer's Asean Retirement Business Leader. "The lack of tax-approved group corporate retirement plans and retirement savings for non-residents continues to isolate Singapore from other highly-graded countries on the global scale," he said. http://www.globalpensionindex.com/country-summaries-2/singapore/ http://www.businesstimes.com.sg/government-economy/singapores-cpf-system-ranked-top-in-asia-denmarks-system-leads-globally-mercer

TOKYO—Japan's $1.26 trillion public pension fund will likely announce a boost to stock and foreign-bond investments in early autumn, the head of its investment committee said Tuesday, potentially sending tens of billions of dollars into new markets. A shuffle at the world's largest pension fund would achieve one of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's objectives and could help invigorate Japan's economy, which is beginning to emerge from a decadeslong era in which investors mostly avoided risk. "I personally think that we need to complete [the new portfolio] in September or October," Yasuhiro Yonezawa, head of the Government Pension Investment Fund's investment committee, said in an interview. "There's no reason to be slow." Mr. Yonezawa outlined a tentative plan for a portfolio shift that would raise the allotments of the fund's assets to go into domestic stocks, foreign bonds and foreign stocks by five percentage points in each category. The aim is twofold: to boost returns to ensure Japanese retirees get the payouts they expect, and to stimulate risk-taking at home by funneling money into growing Japanese businesses. That is in tune with the prime minister's pro-growth "Abenomics" policies. Since taking office in late 2012, Mr. Abe has exhorted the pension fund to rethink its long-standing conservative investment strategy. Currently, domestic stocks and foreign stocks are each targeted to get about 12% of the fund's investment. Under the baseline scenario outlined by Mr. Yonezawa, those figures would rise to 17% each, while the portion allotted to foreign bonds would rise to 16% from 11%. Domestic bonds would fall to 40% from 60%, and the portfolio would likely include a new category for alternative investments in areas such as infrastructure, he said. Mr. Yonezawa said he and two other members of the eight-member investment committee would begin to craft a new portfolio this week. The figures could change based on the group's discussions, he said, adding that the three members would discuss whether to carry out the reshuffle before or after the announcement set for this autumn. The changes could raise uncertainty for tens of millions of Japanese who count on steady pension payouts in retirement. With its traditional focus on Japanese sovereign debt, the fund has performed relatively well in recent years despite extremely low debt yields, in part because the country's deflationary environment was good for bonds. "The [Government Pension Investment Fund] shouldn't be used as a tool for short-term-oriented intervention in asset markets. It's not a piggy bank for short-term policy purposes. Each penny of the GPIF is pension money," said Nobusuke Tamaki, a former fund official who now teaches at Otsuma Women's University. The new focus is essentially a bet on inflation, which Mr. Abe and Japan's central bank have pledged to create. "Until now, it wasn't too good to invest in Japanese stocks, when there wasn't Abenomics," Mr. Yonezawa said. "But recently, Japanese companies are changing, and I think things are getting better." He said Japanese firms were getting a higher return on equity and shifting toward stronger corporate governance. The Japanese pension fund is like Social Security in the U.S. in that it collects money from payroll taxes and uses the cash for payments to retirees. But, unlike Social Security, which puts its funds in nontradable Treasury securities, the Japanese fund can invest in a range of assets, including stocks and bonds from both Japanese and foreign issuers. The fund has invested conservatively, giving a 60% weighting to domestic bonds. It has operated on a shoestring budget out of a single office in Tokyo with fewer than 80 employees. By comparison, the second-largest pension fund in the world—Norway's $770 billion Government Pension Fund Global—is run by an organization with about 370 employees. Reports of changes to the Japanese fund lifted the Tokyo stock market last week, with investors aware that even a shift of a percentage point could send $10 billion flowing in a new direction. But the Nikkei Stock Average remains down for the year as foreign investors question whether Mr. Abe's program will be enough to jolt Japan's economy out of its doldrums. While the Japanese pension fund's changing priorities could push up the value of some foreign assets, the money would likely be so diversified that its impact would be diluted. Even before the new portfolio is completed, the fund has made significant changes in recent months. In February, it said it would start its first joint infrastructure-investment program, through which it would work with other investors to fund projects such as power plants, gas pipelines and railways in developed countries. The fund has started a new four-person division dedicated to nonlisted assets such as infrastructure, private equity and real estate, people with knowledge of the organization say. The fund has traditionally hired large asset managers such as BlackRock Inc., but in April it unveiled a new roster of managers for its portfolio of Japanese stocks and brought on some little-known names. One of the new managers, Seattle-based Taiyo Pacific Partners, has sponsored annual retreats for 25 to 35 Japanese chief executives for the past five years with the hope that improving management will translate into better shareholder returns. In one group activity at the retreat, Japanese managers work together under hot conditions to pound unfinished metal into samurai swords. Fund managers are interested in seeing whether the pension fund will continue to diversify its roster of asset managers, although some say the fund's paltry management fees don't make the business worthwhile. The pension paid a little more than $200 million, or about 0.02% of its portfolio, for outside managers in the fiscal year that ended in March 2013.

http://www.straitstimes.com/microsites/par...rs-mps-20120910 Doesn't include everyone but it's something.

Guys, read this some where so post here to share. Dear friends A lawyer friend (whose name I have with-held) has given me the shocking answer to my query: Do retired ministers receive 50% of their last-drawn pay for life? (scroll down: be sure to read the text in bold especially). I also attach a copy of the Parliamentary Act so you know I am not making this up. Please spread this message by cutting and pasting the text below in a new email message and sending it to all your friends. Some people actually think our ministers only make $40,000 a month, hence are not bothered by our ministers' pay. Some people think it's okay for our ministers to quibble over $30 increase in subsidies to the poor!! Regards __________________________________________________ _ DO MINISTERS RECEIVE 50% OF THEIR LAST-DRAWN PAY FOR LIFE? You friend is wrong about 50%. It is actually as high as 2/3rds. The Parliamentary Pensions Act provides that "office holders" (which means "Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, Speaker, Senior Minister, Minister, Senior Minister of State, Minister of State, Mayor, Senior Parliamentary Secretary, Parliamentary Secretary or Political Secretary"). If you closed your eyes and threw a stone in Parliament House during a Parliamentary sitting - assuming if, and it is a big if, that everyone attends (which is never the case. Parliamentary sittings are lucky if 50% of MPs attend!) you will hit at least 1 or perhaps 2 with the stone ricocheting PAP chaps entitled to pensions. Anyhow, back to your question. The Act has a formula for payment of the amount of pension. You start with a numerator of 8 (meaning 8 years of service as office holder) and add 1 for every year of service after that. You divide this number by a fixed denominator of 27, and you stop when the number hits 2/3rds, which means that anyone who has 18 years service will hit maximum pension. The amount that is due to him FOR LIFE is found at section 4:4(2) The annual amount of pension payable to an office-holding Member shall be

i am not too clear about pension scheme because when i join the workforce pension scheme dont exist apparently according to my dad, the government did away with pension scheme and replaced with CPF then why are all ministers and mp have pension strange

Former CEO of RBS gets US$1m pension for life after reporting huge losses. Claims that government knew about the pension figures and refused to give part of it up. Lose money and he still gets a fat pension till the day he dies? Bad management, failed at his job, incurred massive losses for company=huge pension? Does he have a heart? It's the people's money here if I'm not right?? WOW... Link to full article Really live up to his name... Goodwin.