Pensions - Articles - Industry comments on the PPFs Purple Book 2020

  Dan Mindel, Managing Director at Lincoln Pensions, said: “Although the latest data from the PPF reflects the challenging environment for pension schemes, the picture is far from uniform. Those schemes which were already better funded appear to have been well placed to weather the storm whilst others may be looking at significant larger funding needs.

 “With the rollout of vaccines promising a better outlook for 2021 and as focus shifts towards recovery and dealing with the aftermath of the pandemic, trustees must strike the delicate balance between supporting their sponsor while seeking to address the increased needs of their scheme.”
  

 Adrian Kennett, a professional trustee at Dalriada Trustees, said: The Purple Book shows that the broad trends have continued - active membership of defined benefit schemes is down, schemes are de-risking - moving from equities (down from 24% to 20%) to bonds (up from 63% to 69%), more scheme closures and scheme wind-ups remain at low levels (1%) because wind-up crystallises deficits. In terms of funding, the fact that the effective date is 31 March 2020 is key. Funding levels were down at that point - if the data was cut today it would show a different story. But that different story of funding improvement would mask scheme-specific challenges, particularly as we have seen in recent days in sectors such as retail.