After delays of a week the Treasury has announced the “Mansion House Accord” with 17 pension funds this morning signing up to Reeves’ expanded version of the Mansion House Compact negotiated by Jeremy Hunt in 2023. Eleven funds signed up for that one, which committed firms to allocate 5% of their defined contribution funds to unlisted equity by 2030…
Signers-on make up about 90% of the UK’s defined contribution pensions. Reeves has doubled that 2023 requirement to 10% investment in private markets by 2030 with a requirement to put half of that in UK markets “if there is a sufficient supply of suitable assets.” An overnight release threatens that measures could be “reinforced” over time…
The Treasury has stressed since 2023 that these agreements are voluntary but there have been increasingly worried noises from funds who say that there is an underlying threat of mandated investment or punishments to be dished out to poor performers. Industry sources point out the threat of future punitive action will likely be enough to make funds play nice…
The agreement has already suffered a blow as Scottish Widows refuses today to take part despite signing up to 2023’s compact. Directing fund investment is a perversion of the free market – a source from one of the UK’s largest wealth managers tells Guido “politicians have a habit of viewing pensions as a pot of cash to play with to the detriment of their fiduciary duty to deliver a return.” Quite…
Statement by Paul Dacre, Editor-in-Chief of Associated Newspapers Limited, following Harry’s loss in court today:
“Prince Harry wrote a sad book which boasted about his killing of 25 Taliban, his drug-taking and, in cringe-making detail, how he lost his virginity. There isn’t a laundry in the cosmos big enough to wash all the dirty linen he has aired about his own family. For him, to complain about HIS privacy being invaded takes, not just the biscuit, but the whole tin. Poor Harry. I feel sorry for the way a confused and angry young man has been drawn into this case. The bitter irony is that his mother, Diana, liked the Mail. We were her paper. We took her side in her acrimonious break up with Charles. She and I would speak and meet. The Mail’s superb royal reporter was her friend and confidante. The truth is that this trumped-up action – which has cost well over £50 million and wasted a huge amount of valuable court time – should never have been brought to trial. That it did, raises profoundly disturbing questions about the conduct of elements of the legal profession. Today’s verdict is not just a victory for Associated’s magnificent journalists – several of whom have had a terrible toll imposed on their health and lives – but a free press generally. Make no mistake. This was a conspiracy, supported by Hacked Off, to destroy a paper. Financed by the orgy-loving, racist Max Mosley and involving the actor Hugh Grant, it was also a sinister bid to resuscitate Leveson Two and impose statutory regulation on the press which, even now, is rearing its ugly head in Labour’s Media Green Paper.”