Rotman International Centre for Pension Management's Keith Ambachtsheer:
It's the balance sheet, stupid (when discussing how to look at defined benefit plans).
Ontario Teachers is the No. 1 pension organization in the world.
Defined benefit vs. defined contribution debates are dysfunctional.
UniSuper Management's David Schneider:
One takeaway from this conference is it's a lot better in Australia than I thought it was.
The only risk control lever we have in place is the investment strategy.
Groom Law Group's Ian Lanoff:
Public pension plans have headline risk: They operate in a fish bowl.
Allianz Global Investors' Andreas Hilka:
Demographics are a bigger issue in Germany than in pension systems of other developed markets.
Florida State Board of Ad-ministration's Ash Williams:
The FSBA's funding ratio is a story of crisis, redemption and rebuilding.
Pension envy: taxpayers jealous of public pension plans
Former head of the Chilean Pension Supervisory Authority Solange Berstein:
When participants couldn't load up on equities in 2008, I got complaints. In 2009, I got thanks.
Former president and CEO of the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Jim Leech:
We want to dispel the idea that DB plans are bad.
How are we doing people who are not professional investors a favor by offering 20-30 investment options?
University of Oxford's Gordon Clark:
The ideal of a pension system is to be intergenerationally adequate.
There is incredible myopia in DC, with participants wanting to know, “What's my balance this month?”
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan:
As a nation, the lack of preparation for retirement is devastating.
Investing is a great way to teach math.
Not every teachers' pension fund has great governance.
Financial literacy is like a foreign language; you have to start students at a young age.
AP2's Tomas Franzen:
The government has instructed us not to put ESG before returns.
MIT Sloan School of Management's Robert C. Merton:
What are young people's retirement assets? Future contributions.
New Zealand Superannuation Fund's David Iverson:
Too much liquidity is a problem. So is too little. It's a balancing act.
Governance is the biggest risk we face.
CFA Institute's Jonathan Boersma:
What do you do when they present you with a live goat?
BP America's Gregory T. Williamson:
Portfolio risk is in the eye of the beholder.
National Employment Savings Trust's Paul Todd:
The U.K. has gone through a pretty big social experiment in terms of pensions.
Textron's Charles Van Vleet:
Too much liquidity is just as bad as too little liquidity.
