A survey of U.S. public pension fund CEOs and executive directors found that all 34 systems had business contingency plans in place that "generally worked well" when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in February, resulting in "very few ... significant problems," according to data released Monday by Funston Advisory Services, a governance consulting firm.
Fully 90% of the funds surveyed in the second half of July said they shifted to virtual board meetings mostly through video conferencing, although some conducted meetings by conference calls or a combination of telephone and video conferencing.
That said, 64% of pension fund CEOs/EDs said the existing contingency plan worked "very well' with minimal difficulties for virtual board meetings. That compares with 94% of CEOs who said existing contingency plans worked well for general administration, 88% for benefits administration; investment department, 86%; external communications, 82%; information technology, 76%; and employee communication, 73%.